Minecraft: Normal Mode
by Ariza Luca
Summary: Evangeline Butler- or Evie for short- is completely ordinary. She lives an ordinary life, she has nothing special about her, she's not particularly beautiful or well-liked or disliked. Literally the only thing that is even remotely out of the ordinary about her is that she's a major pacifist. Oh, and she got dragged into a crazy adventure. (Female!Jesse)
1. Endercon Building Competition

Evangeline Butler, better known as Evie to most people, jogged carefully towards the Endercon Building Competition site, mentally spitting out every single swear word that she knew. Of COURSE her alarm clock wouldn't go off when it was supposed to, especially on a day like today. Why was she even surprised at this point.

The only reason she wasn't full-out sprinting to get there was because she was going to trip and fall flat on her face if she did, and that would just slow her down even more than her dark, short wavy hair attempting to get stuck on every branch she shoved past, leaves whipping at her amber eyes and fair skin.

When she finally pushed past the thirteenth branch and brushed a couple of leaves out of her hair, she noticed that her team had already made it through the gate. Breathless, Evie walked up to the booth, where two teams appeared to be facing off. "Um, hi, I'm with the Bookworms?" she asked, lungs attempting to heave as much air as they could back in.

One of the boys at the team nearest the sign-in booth snorted, making her glance over. "'The Bookworms?' That's the lamest name for a team I've ever heard," the pale-green eyed boy sneered at her.

If Evie had been any normal person, she would shot back a snappy comeback, but because she was just such a shy person and just... really bad at comebacks (the only one she currently could think of being 'yeah, and you're mean'), she glanced away back at the lady at the booth, who she knew... not _personally_ , but they had enough mutual friends and acquaintances that they knew each other.

"Oh, yes. You guys are in Booth 4," and the woman gave her a friendly smile.

"Wow, look at Little Miss High-and-Mighty over here. Too good to reply?" the same boy asked, his voice perfectly innocent-sounding.

Evie felt her cheeks color at that as her amber eyes flickered over to the look at him and his group. The brown-haired girl was snickering a little, and the bearded boy next to her was grinning nastily at her. The only member of the team nearest the booth that wasn't sneering at her was a blonde guy with a purple-striped shirt. In fact, he appeared to be giving her an apologetic sort of look.

And an _actual_ apologetic look, not the sorts of 'apologetic' looks that Camry gave her.

"Hey, leave her alone, Aiden," and Evie glanced over her shoulder to see the girl behind her put her hands on her overall-clad hips. Her much-longer black hair hung practically down to her rib cage, barely kept out of her face by a gold pin, green eyes narrowed in anger. "She's not trying to cause any trouble with anybody."

"Yeah, dude, be cool," the _much_ -bigger male just behind her glared at the one who'd been rude (Aiden, apparently), "she's not doing anything." The other girl in the group- a girl about a head taller than the petite girl, with darker skin and curlier hair topped off with a pale green beanie with goggles on her head, didn't say anything but nodded agreement, giving the guy a glare.

Mumbling a weak sort of 'excuse me', Evie turned back to the woman at the booth, gave her a grateful smile and nod, and moved through the gates and headed for Booth 4 before the situation could escalate too much, where her teammates were waiting for her.

"Evie, there you are." Christina, the tallest member of the group, frowned, putting her hand on her hip and cocking her head to one side, narrowing perfectly mascara-ed eyes at the shorter girl. "Where were you? We almost didn't get let in until we said you were late and would be showing up soon."

"Sorry- I overslept," Evie said sheepishly, reaching up and rubbing her head with an awkward smile.

Her teammate didn't return it. "Seriously? You _overslept?_ Did you forget we had the competition today?" she snapped at the slightly shorter girl.

Evie's smile faded a little bit, but she kept it up. "Uh... no, my alarm clock just didn't go off. Sorry, Christina."

"C'mon, Christina, cool it," and Camry shot Evie an apologetic look that looked a little fake (as usual), rubbing her head. "It was an accident. We've established that. Just let it go."

Christina scoffed, turning on her heel and heading over to the chest containing all their building materials. "Whatever. I don't even know why we let her build with us," she muttered, under her breath but still loud enough for Evie to catch.

Evie's smile faded, and Max sighed, reaching out and patting Evie on the back. "Uh, sorry, Eva-" That was the name he insisted on calling her by. It had taken her a few times to get used to it, but eventually she'd adjusted. "She's just..." He trailed off, as if unsure of what exactly she was.

"A b*tch," Penny chimed in, under her breath.

Max frowned over at the shorter female. "Camry!"

"What? It's true. I don't even know why you bother trying to stay friends with her, Evie," and Camry shook her head at Evie, curly brown hair bouncing around a little bit. If Camry had been anyone but Camry, Evie would've taken it as being nice, but since it was Camry... well, you get the point. "It's like trying to make friends with a rattlesnake. Actually, making friends with the rattlesnake would probably be easier."

"Well, I've been friends with her since elementary school, I can hardly just tell her I don't want to be friends with her anymore," Evie shrugged. _Much like you two._ "Besides, she's not _that_ bad all the time."

"Just most of the time," Max offered, smirking at Christina's back.

Evie sensed she should probably change the subject. So, she did so with incredible tact and skill. (That was sarcasm by the way. Incredibly heavy sarcasm.) "... Anyway, what are we building today? Are we still doing the fantasy castle with the moving dragon like we planned?"

Evie wasn't GOOD at building, but she wasn't necessarily _bad_ at it either. At least she was better at putting blocks down in a decorative fashion than fighting. Or redstone. She was terrible at both.

Max and Camry immediately exchanged a look that made her think that it was a good thing she'd brought BOTH her lucky hoe and her lucky iron helmet with her. "Um... no. Christina changed the plan at the last minute. We're building a flying machine."

Evie's eyes widened a little bit in shock. "What?! I don't know how to build a flying machine! And we don't even have slimes!" she exclaimed, voice rising up in slight hysteria at the end.

Camry shrugged, frowning. "We told her that too. She told us to mind our own business and that it was a better idea than the castle."

"Which is a total lie, by the way, I prefer the castle," Max muttered, making sure to keep his voice low so that Christina didn't catch it.

Evie let out a long, low, groan. In the background, she could vaguely hear Aiden sneering at someone. From what it sounded like, it was the same girl that had defended her back at the entrance and her team. "Great. Fantastic. There is no way this is going to work. She does know we're supposed to have slimes, right?"

There was a very long pause at that, enough time for a girl with normal-length red hair and a blue-striped bandana on her head to walk past them at a normal speed and start chatting with the two groups, who appeared to be facing off with one another.

"... I don't think she does."

Evie sighed, reaching up and rubbing the bridge of her nose to try to alleviate the gigantic headache that was currently forming. It didn't work, but you know, at least she was trying, right? "... oh sweet mercy..."

* * *

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE NEED SLIME TO MAKE A FLYING MACHINE?!"

Long story short, they'd just tried to explain that they _couldn't_ build a flying machine because none of them had any slime.

Needless to say, Christina was not taking it very well.

"You didn't know?" Evie didn't have a foul tongue, but she was having a great deal of trouble with not cussing Christina out at the moment. "Of course you need slimes to build a flying machine."

"Well, you could've TOLD us that!" Christina snapped at Evie, the tall girl towering over the currently-looking-severely-irritated older girl.

Max immediately glared at Christina. "Don't drag me and Camry into this. We tried to tell you. You were the one who insisted on changing the build at the last minute when we'd all decided on the castle and the dragon idea last _month_." And if it had been anyone else saying this, Evie would've thought he was actually being nice, but it wasn't, it was Max. He just had preferred the dragon and castle idea.

"I only agreed because I thought Evie would change her mind and agree that a flying machine was better!" Christina whined, stamping her foot like a petulant child. Honestly, the entire group had to wonder how old this girl was in the first place...

Evie stared at Christina, unsure whether to laugh or facepalm. Hard. "You never put the idea to me in the first place..."

The group's argument (and in Evie's case, her weak attempts at defusing the situation and failing miserably) was interrupted by the sound of fireworks going off.

Looking up, the group next to them- the girl and her group who'd defended Evie earlier- had built a giant Enderman, fireworks shooting out of a dispenser behind them. It might not have been the most complicated build... but it was definitely very impressive-looking.

"Nice build!" Evie yelled up to them, giving an encouraging smile as she turned away from Christina.

The girl leaned over the edge of the Enderman to see who it was that had spoken. Upon spotting Evie, the girl grinned widely. "Thanks!" she shouted back.

Suddenly, Evie felt a pair of hands slam into her back, and she stumbled forward a few steps, pinwheeling her arms in an attempt to keep herself upright. The attempt might've worked if Evie had been someone less clumsy, but unfortunately, Evie was pretty much the clumsiest person on the planet, and the pinwheeling just threw her even _more_ off balance.

Slamming into the ground with a little squeak of surprise, Evie rolled over and sat up to see Max and Camry staring at Christina, wide-eyed, the taller girl's already petulant expression twisted into a harsh glare. "What are you doing congratulating the other team?! You're supposed to be on _our_ team!" she practically screamed at Evie.

Evie flinched at the scream, but her eyes were wide at Christina. "Did you just _shove_ me?!"

In all of their years of being 'friends', Christina had _never_ manhandled her like that. Shouted, screamed, threw a fit, acted like a child, used petty insults, acted as if Evie was trash, sure. She'd done all of that and probably more.

But she had _never_ so much as _touched_ Evie before.

"Yeah! What are you going to do about it, you piece of sh-"

"Leave."

Christina stopped mid-screech, staring at Evie as if the girl had just sprouted two heads. "What did you just say?"

"I'm leaving." Evie stood back up, absentmindedly dusting herself off. "The three of us have been friends for nine years, and I have never once done anything to you. I try not to argue. I don't talk behind your backs. I don't even bad-talk you guys."

She shook her head a little bit, an almost apologetic look coming over her face. "But you guys... you start arguments with me every other week, you talk behind my back- don't look at me like that, I've overheard you," she directed this at Max and Camry, who'd started to protest, "and you insult me every other day, if not _every_ day. I tried to stay friends, because I figured that's what a _good_ friend would do."

Evie's voice was starting to shake and oh. Oh yeah, now her throat was closing up and she was narrowing her eyes in an attempt to keep herself from crying because she wasn't a crybaby she wasn't a little kid _she wasn't going to cry-_

"Are you calling us bad friends?!" Camry demanded, her big brown eyes growing wide with anger. "We try to defend you-"

"And then trash-talk me behind my back. I'm not saying you're a bad friend," Evie said quietly, trying to keep every little bit of the tremors threatening to shake her to the core and spill out in her voice and eyes back so that they didn't see her cry, she was _not_ going to let all of these people see her cry, "I'm just saying you're not a good one to _me_."

There was a literal minute of pure silence, where Camry, Christina, and Max were just staring at her and she was staring back.

There was more Evie could have said, but right then a terrified squeal rang through the air, making Evie spin around to see a little pig wearing... was that an Ender Dragon costume?... squeal and run around, the tips of the wings flickering with flame, before the pig took off towards the woods.

Behind him, lava poured out from one of the builds that Aiden was standing near, a startled expression on his face as he danced out of Reuben's way.

"Oh no- Reuben's on fire!" Evie could hear the girl from earlier shout from on top of the Enderman. "Reuben, _no!_ Come back!"

Before Evie actually even realized what she was doing, she jumped over the fence and was sprinting after the pig. She hadn't even made it out of the area before her foot caught on her other foot and she nearly tripped forward and broke her nose.

A hand seized her wrist, keeping her from faceplanting but very nearly jerking her arm right out of its socket, and she glanced up to see that Aiden had instinctively grabbed at her arm to keep her from hitting the ground. She could tell it was instinctive, because he was blinking in surprise at having her arm in his hand.

She would've thought about it more if she couldn't see thin trails of smoke floating off of the Ender Dragon wings on Reuben's back disappearing further into the forest, and she quickly regained her balance, yanked her arm out of his grip with a hasty "Thanks!" and continued tearing off into the woods, although she made sure to go at a less breakneck speed after Reuben so that she didn't trip and break something.

As the sounds of the building competition faded away, the sun continued to set, shadows growing and lengthening and making the area so much harder to survey than before.

Especially since her eyes were actually tearing up now, and she was pretty certain it wasn't from the fact that her shoulder was now aching a little bit or the smoke trailing after Reuben.

* * *

 **A/N: ... so yeah, the first chapter of this is up.**

 **I've noticed that tons of people have MCSM OCs that have cool powers, or they're really badass, or they're a Gary or Mary Stu, or they're shipped with one of the main characters.**

 **Minecraft: Normal Mode follows an OC that has literally nothing special about them. They are not a cool person, they don't have special skills, they're not an expert, they're not particularly good at anything, they don't have special powers, they're not shipped with anyone, and they're not particularly emo or cute or pretty or anything.**

 **They're literally as ordinary as they can get, except for maybe being a huge pacifist. They're a bit of a crybaby at times, they're extremely clumsy, they're shy, and they're not mysterious or special in any way.**

 **So even though there's nothing cool about them, I hope you enjoy this fic regardless. :3**

 **x.X. A.L. X.x**


	2. Lucky Hoe to the Rescue!

Evie finally caught up to the pig- man, this little one was _fast_ for being so small- and skidded to a halt next to it, the little pig still squealing up a storm and running around in a little panic.

Actually, she might've overbalanced a bit and crashed onto her side.

"Whoa, whoa, calm down there!" she exclaimed, trying to keep her voice steady and calm, and you know, not completely panicked and breathless. "Easy, easy..."

It didn't help, though- the pig (Reuben? Yeah, she was pretty sure that was it) was so riled up about being on fire (well, but Evie could understand, after all, _it was on fire_ ) that it- _he_ , not it, Reuben was a guy's name- just kept squealing and running.

It took Evie a few mistimed swipes and one instance of smacking herself in the face, but she finally managed to yank off the wings, which were now mostly consumed by the flames. Dumping them on the ground unceremoniously, she seized ahold of the dragon head- which was _really_ well made, by the way, points to whoever had made it- and popped it off.

The minute it came off, Reuben was off running again, and Evie actually dropped the Ender Dragon head onto the piled-up wings, flames slowly dying down and finding nothing else to burn, before scrambling to her feet and racing after him. "Hey, come back here! It's okay!"

The little pig squealed in reply, Evie still chasing after it. She tripped a few times, getting a good amount of dirt smeared onto her front- oh well, she'd been planning on doing her laundry soon, anyways- nearly toppling headfirst into a stream, and nearly cracking her skull on a few rocks- but she somehow managed to keep up with Reuben. Which was a first, since she usually was so darn slow.

When she'd finally caught up to Reuben, he was hiding in a big patch of grass, shaking with terror and squealing from the ordeal. "Hey, hey, shhhh, shhh, it's okay." Evie held up her hands to show she was unarmed, giving the pig a nervous sort of grin. "See? I'm not gonna hurt you, buddy."

At last, Reuben managed to calm down, snuffling a bit as he emerged from the grass- enough to poke his head out and get a better look at her, anyways. Evie let out a little sigh of relief, leaning over and patting the pig gently. "There you go. You're feeling better, huh?"

He snorted a bit, as if replying. Evie blinked down at it, before waving it off dismissively- of course Reuben couldn't reply, he was just a cute little pig- and giving it a smile. "There you go, shhh..."

Evie got fairly repetitive when she was trying to be calming, as you can probably tell.

Now that the initial concern was gone- mainly, that Reuben wasn't going to die at the hands of a mob- Evie's mind immediately went back to that little altercation between her and her 'friends'.

She had _no_ idea where that little outburst had come from. Sure, she'd been annoyed with them before, and it wasn't the first time they treated her like a little kid or like she wasn't even a part of the group. Yeah, it was the first time that Christina had _shoved_ her, but still. Most other friends did that to each other sometimes, right? Playful shoving and that?

Except that it wasn't playful, was it? That shove wasn't intended to be playful. Not with what Christina had started to say.

Weren't friends supposed to ignore shortcomings like that? Or- I don't know, accept them?

Did that make her a bad friend?

"Guess it doesn't matter," she mumbled to herself, ignoring the way Reuben perked up at her suddenly speaking after a minute of silence, "after all, after basically calling it quits with all of them, I don't really... _have_ friends anymore, so I don't have any way of judging it."

At those mumbled words to herself, she started feeling tears pricking her eyes again. Great. She was crouched in the middle of nowhere with encroaching dusk and a pig and she was about to start crying like a baby because she'd broken up with her group of friends who hadn't been very nice to her but hey, at least they'd been willing to be friends with her. Except now they weren't because she'd just broken up with them.

Yay.

"Reuben?"

Evie jumped in surprise at the voice, realized too late that she was crouching, and toppled forward, accidentally landing right on top of Reuben, who let out a startled squeal at suddenly being squashed by a not-very-tall-or-heavy teenage girl.

"Oh! I'm sorry, Reuben. Didn't mean to squish ya there," and Evie quickly rolled off, allowing Reuben to get back up. Rolling over allowed her to see that the source of the voice was the girl from earlier, her long black hair now slightly disheveled.

"Uh, hey there. Sorry, didn't mean to... startle you that much," the girl blinked, looking a little surprised. "I'm Jesse."

If Evie was a normal person without social anxiety, she would've just replied normally, but because she _wasn't_ a normal person who _did_ have social anxiety, she just managed a weak little smile and nod. "Hi, Jesse. I'm Evie. I mean, Evangeline. I mean, my full name's Evangeline but people call me Evie."

Evie decided to shut up so she didn't keep making a fool out of herself.

Jesse, for her part, didn't act like Evie's weird attempt at a greeting was weird (even though it was)- she just smiled and nodded. "Nice to meet you, Evie." She then paused, before rubbing her head a little. "Uh, thanks for coming after Reuben too. I didn't think anyone would."

"Uh-huh," Evie managed, struggling back to her feet.

Jesse gave Evie a friendly sort of nod, before immediately crouching down next to the little pig and giving him a big grin, rubbing his head. "Hey buddy. You want a carrot?"

Reuben let out an excited squeal at the prospect of carrots, crunching down on it eagerly. Jesse sat back on her heels a little bit and let out a relieved sigh. "Oh I am _so_ happy to see you!"

Reuben grinned at that.

"We should probably-"

Right then, Evie heard a loud groan, twisting to look over her shoulder and spot- oh joy!- zombies, blocking the way that both of them had come. "Oh no- Reuben, Evie, run!" Jesse yelled, staggering to her feet and tearing off to the right.

Evie quickly followed, although she was careful not to just trip and fall like usual- in this case, if she accidentally did that, there was a big chance that that would prove deadly.

For once, the girl got lucky, catching up to Jesse as she stooped down and patted her pig with a relieved look. "Whew... I think we're good."

As if the universe was intent on thwarting Jesse, a creeper came approaching them, with an almost curious hiss.

"Maybe not!" Evie squeaked, Jesse letting out an alarmed scream and dashing away again, shoving through tall grass as the little group ran away from the creeper, Jesse and Reuben pulling forward again because really, Evie could only run at a jog without her clumsiness getting the best of her.

Up ahead, Jesse had come to a stop in front of what looked like a shallow cave. Evie increased her speed a little bit-

And promptly tripped over a ledge of land that had been camouflaged slightly, knocking her forward and slamming right into Jesse, taking both girls down in a rather painful pile. However, in this case, Evie's clumsiness might've just saved both of their lives, because they'd barely hit the ground- once again, nearly squashing Reuben, who squealed and dodged out of the way in the nick of time- when they heard the _hiss-thud_ of an arrow.

Jesse looked up to see an arrow quivering ominously in the cliff where they'd just been, turning her head to see the skeleton aiming again-

" _Okay let's move!_ " and she shoved Evie off of her hastily, lurching out of the way and avoiding the next arrow as well. Evie scrambled to her feet and managed to chase after Jesse again, the long-haired girl turning a corner with Reuben-

And then all three of them came to a screeching halt at the several-meter-tall sheer _wall_ in front of them on all three sides. A dead end.

The moans of zombies came along again, and they all turned to see mobs begin to pour through the entrance of the dead end- mostly zombies hobbling along, straight towards the little group.

Jesse blinked for a moment, looking slightly off guard... before her gaze hardened, and she pulled out a wooden sword, the sound of wood scraping on its sheathe sounding, holding it at the ready and preparing to attack. "Evie, do you have a weapon?"

"Ye-Yeah!" And Evie pulled out her lucky iron hoe.

* * *

Reuben and Jesse stared at the wavy black-haired girl standing next to them, amber eyes glinting nervously.

Maybe that was because, upon being asked if she had any weapons, she'd proceeded to pull out a _hoe_.

Evie blinked back upon spotting their stares. "What?"

"What... is that?" Jesse asked, slowly, completely forgetting about the approaching threat for the moment.

"... my lucky iron hoe?" Evie replied, blinking uncertainly and sounding as if this was some sort of trick question.

"... you have a lucky hoe?"

"Yes, of course I have a lucky hoe. Don't you?"

Jesse was about to reply when Reuben let out a loud squeal of alarm. Spinning to face the front again, the rotting, seeking hands of zombies groped at their faces.

"... let's come back to this conversation _after_ we're not in imminent danger."

Evie shrugged, raising her lucky hoe in a sort of defensive way. "Sure, though I'm not sure what we'd talk about..."

Jesse lashed out immediately, the wooden blade smacking meatily into the nearest zombie and knocking it back several places. "Back! Get back!" she snapped at it, before glancing back at Reuben. "Stay behind me, Reuben."

The little pig let out a little whine and crept behind her a little more.

Lunging forward again, she knocked the zombie down and stabbed the wooden blade into its head, causing it to explode in a cloud of smoke.

Another zombie approached Evie, the girl edging backwards a bit nervously with the hoe still in her hands. The zombie halfheartedly swiped at Evie, and she immediately jumped back and swung the hoe like a baseball bat, smashing right into it and knocking it to the floor.

The force of the swing caused her to spin around in a little circle, stagger as she was knocked off-balance- and slam her foot straight through the zombie's skull, making a funny crunching-squishing noise and making the zombie explode in a cloud of smoke and rotten flesh.

Evie made a funny little face at that. "Oh, _gross_..."

Jesse grimaced a little bit as Evie lifted her foot, which was now dripping with blood, rotting gore, and... other stuff and furiously scraped it off on the grass with a disgusted expression on her face. "Yeah, that... did not look fun."

Both of them looked up as twin groans issued from a duo of zombies, lurching towards them in odd tandem.

Jesse lashed out with the sword again, this time, knocking one of them into the other and making both of them stagger oddly. Evie moved forward as well, although she did so extremely cautiously- then again, she _did_ have a hoe as a weapon.

Jesse had _just_ thought this when Evie swung the hoe into the air above her head like a tomahawk and hacked towards, smashing the hoe's sharper end right into the zombie closest to her and cracking into its already-rotten skull, making it puff into smoke quickly.

"Okay, that was kind of cool," Jesse told her, as she dodged in front of Evie and smacked into the zombie again, although unfortunately this time she hit it slightly wrong and it just flew backwards several paces again.

Evie perked up, head turning to stare at Jesse rapidly with wide eyes. "I- that was cool? You think so?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I?" Jesse replied, returning her attention to the zombie and smacking the sword into it again.

"Well- I mean, that was an accident, I'm really bad at fighting."

"What do you mean you're bad a-?"

And _that's_ when it happened. Right as Jesse brought the sword down, the wooden blade, already having gotten dangerously fragile, snapped in half perfectly, the hilt remaining in her hand but the snapped-off blade flying through the air, doing a perfect 360 before clattering to the ground, exploding into smoke not a half second later.

Moments later, the hilt followed suit.

"Stupid wooden swords!" Jesse groaned, backing away with Reuben still behind her and Evie feebly fending off the mobs with her lucky iron hoe. This was... yeah, this was _not_ a good situation.

Wait, unless- "Evie, you wouldn't happen to have any more weapons, would you?"

"Ummm... unless you can somehow figure out a way to weaponize an iron helmet, no," Evie replied, glancing over her shoulder very quickly before back at the mobs approaching.

"Darn. Okay, uh... don't worry, Reuben," Jesse said shakily, backing away slowly from the mobs, "we'll think of something..." Looking at Evie a moment later, she practically _squeaked_ , "Please tell me you've got a plan."

"I definitely do _not_ have a plan."

"Well that's just fantastic." Jesse stared at the approaching mobs for a longer moment, before glancing back at Reuben. "You're going to have to make a run for it, Reuben," she told the pig, who looked up at her anxiously and whined, shaking his head. "I'll meet you back in town. I promise."

Evie lifted her hoe and smacked another zombie away, stepping back again and nearly backing straight into Jesse. "Jesse, if Reuben wants to run... he's gonna have to do it fast!" she squeaked, as more and more mobs crowded in.

"Now, Reuben! Run!" Jesse screamed, fear galvanizing her into action, and Reuben immediately started galloping away through the crowd of monsters. One zombie halfheartedly swiped at him, but the little pig easily dodged and made it out of the crowd.

Evie stepped back again, Jesse following her lead a little bit and checking over her shoulder to find that if they backed up any further, they'd be smacking straight into a wall of dirt.

An approaching spider let out a hiss, backing up a pace or two as it prepared to lunge at them... it launched itself forwards-

Evie yelped, flinching and swinging out with the hoe randomly. The hoe smacked into the spider with a sickening sort of crunch, knocking it sideways and sending it flying like a gigantic, misshapen baseball.

"Do you usually fight... like... at all?"

"No."

"... oh." Well, it explained why she was bringing a _hoe_ out with her, rather than an actual weapon... still, she was still holding her own with the hoe fairly well.

"Duck."

Jesse glanced at Evie, blinking as she was caught off guard by the single syllable. "What?"

" _Move!_ " Evie lunged sideways, slamming into Jesse and knocking them both to the ground as a spider lunged through the air where they'd just been. Before either of them could catch their breaths, Evie was knocked back to the ground as another spider landed on top of her, and since she was right on top of Jesse, that was kind of bad.

Just kind of.

Evie thought quickly- either that, or she completely panicked and just happened to roll over. Whichever option it was, she proceeded to roll off of Jesse, allowing Jesse to suck in a huge breath of air as she flopped onto her back- where the spider was perched.

Jesse cringed at the loud, squishy but crunchy sort of noise as Evie rolled over onto the spider, momentum and her body weight combined working together to crush the spider into a pulp. Moments later, the spider exploded into smoke beneath her, Evie's free hand entangling in a knot of string that the spider had dropped.

Jesse struggled to sit back up, Evie also jerking into an upright position and swinging her hoe in a full-on swing at another encroaching mob, smacking a zombie and knocking it over while sending a spider flying.

"... I thought you said you didn't fight?"

"Jesse, I'm literally just flailing randomly with this thing. The fact that I'm hitting anything at all is just that these things are so close and so big that I literally _can't miss!_ " Evie shrieked the last two words as a spider lunged at Jesse, her hoe still unprepared from the haphazard swing she'd just made-

A pickaxe slapped the spider aside, and suddenly Petra was standing over them both, a sharp glare on her face as she took her usual pickaxe and violently stabbed the spider with it, one, two, three, and before it even completely dissolved into smoke she was already turning to the other two girls.

"Petra?" Jesse gasped, her heart still jackhammering away in her chest.

"C'mon," was the only thing the redhead said, "let's get out of the open."

Evie managed to climb to her feet, putting the hoe and the string away and helpfully reaching out her hand so Jesse could pull herself back upright, before the three of them ran away from the mobs, Petra swinging out with her pickaxe and clearing a path while Jesse scooped up the string from the spider Petra had just killed.

* * *

 **A/N: Huh, so I guess the lucky hoe actually IS lucky to some extent.**

 **So so far, we've seen that Evie is totally clumsy and not very good at fighting. Though she is good at smacking things with reckless abandon upon using her lucky hoe, so maybe there's something to be said with that.**

 **Yay, Petra! Next few chapters should be fun. xD**

 **x.X. A.L. X.x**


	3. A Lot of Convincing

"Come on, I wanna show you guys something," the redhead said as she walked into a long cave without any seeming reservations. Evie hadn't said anything the whole time they'd been running to this area, though for once it wasn't just because she was shy. The main reason was that she'd gotten _so_ out of breath earlier that it just sounded like she was panting like a dog.

Evie'd always wanted a dog.

"Not that this isn't a really... _cool_ , dimly lit tunnel or anything," Jesse said, sounding slightly uneasy and like the tunnel wasn't actually that cool, "but how far away is this thing that you want to show us?"

Evie was feeling two things right now. One, relief that Jesse had voiced her own concerns so that Evie didn't have to in front of a person she didn't know and possibly make a gigantic fool out of herself. Two, slight amusement at Jesse's concerns. Sure, this was a dark, not-well-lit cave, but it was just a cave. Evie pretty much lived _in_ a cave.

"Careful, Jesse," and the redhead looked over her shoulder, "you don't want to get a reputation as a wimp. Even she," and she nodded at Evie, "doesn't seem all that nervous."

Evie blinked. Before feeling red beginning to pump into her cheeks, and she automatically knew, even though the caves were dimly lit with warm torchlight, that her now bright-red face was extremely obvious. "I mean, I pretty much... live _in_ a cave, so..."

"Hm, that so?" The redhead suddenly twisted to look over her shoulder again, looking more directly at Evie. (To Evie's slight dismay, since her blush had pretty much turned her into a tomato-head.) "By the way, I'm sorry, I don't think we've actually met before..."

"Oh. Hi." Evie paused for several seconds, before realizing (mainly from the bandana-wearing-girl's expectant look and Jesse's slightly blank one) that that _probably_ wasn't adequate, and so she offered, "I'm Evie."

Bandana-Girl nodded a bit, as if mentally filing that information away. "Okay. Nice to meet you, Evie. I'm Petra." If she'd noticed Evie's blush, she didn't mention it. "Anyway, about that thing I wanted to show you..." Petra slowed to a stop, reaching into her pocket and turning towards them. "Have either of you ever seen..."

A blackened, almost burnt skull, jaw flopping open and hollow eye-sockets staring right at the other two. "A Wither Skull?"

"Whoa!" Jesse gasped in surprise, actually stepping back a little bit. Evie blinked in surprise, feeling her eyes growing round and (thankfully) the blush fading a little bit. At least, she was _pretty_ sure it had faded a little bit. She felt a little less hot, at least.

"Fresh from the Nether," Petra continued, glancing up at the other two with a faint sort of smirk playing on their lips, "You two are the first people I've showed it to."

"You risked your life for that dusty old skull?" Jesse asked, glancing up at Petra and arching her eyebrow, as if trying to play it cool. Evie just continued staring at the skull- she had never, _ever_ seen a Wither Skull before.

It looked more normal than she'd expected.

"No- I risked my life for the thing I'm gonna _exchange_ for that dusty old skull," Petra said coolly, sliding the skull back into her pocket and continuing the walk, Evie hustling to keep up and being careful to not trip. "There's a guy I'm meeting up at Endercon. He's gonna trade me a diamond for it. Being the resident go-getter pays off once in a while."

Now that Evie thought about it a little more, she _did_ see Petra talking to people and trading stuff with them every once in a while.

"The guy you got the skull for," Jesse said, slowly, now sounding a little curious, "what's his deal?"

Petra was silent for a moment, as if thinking of which words she was going to use, before carefully saying, "He's... kind of strange, I guess. But hey, everybody's got their thing."

Evie proceeded to completely surprise herself by piping up, "And you didn't ask him what was up with the skull? Like... like, like why he wanted you to get it? It's... it seems kinda sketchy."

"Plenty of my deals are sketchy," Petra shrugged it off dismissively. "As long as the guy is willing to pay. I _earned_ that diamond."

Evie somehow didn't think so, but hey, what did she know? Petra actually made deals with people all the time, while Evie was just... well, Evie. Petra probably knew what she was doing.

"Wow."

Petra paused in her tracks, looking over her shoulder at Jesse, who'd just uttered that one word with _amazement_ tinging her voice. "Wow... what?" the redhead asked, slowly, as she turned around to stare at them more evenly.

"It's just- in _one day_ ," Jesse said, admiringly, "you went to the Nether. You killed a _Wither Skeleton_ \- I mean, I _did_ build a super cool statue," she added, "but, still. It's _pretty_ sweet being you, huh?"

Petra paused, as if she was thinking about this a little more, before saying slowly, "You know... you guys could come... _with_ me."

With that, she turned and resumed walking through the cave.

Jesse gaped silently at Petra in astonishment, then at Evie, who was still standing patiently next to Jesse. "Did she just-?"

"Offer to let us come along with her on her deal? Yeah." Evie didn't sure why Petra had invited _her_ \- she just happened to be in the room, maybe. Yeah, that was definitely. Why would Petra want a clumsy dork to come along with her on the deal? Evie was more likely to screw it up than to actually be helpful.

"I mean, if you guys are too nervous, I totally get it," Petra added, now several meters away, "but I wouldn't mind some backup."

Jesse now took off after Petra in a job, Evie speedwalking to catch up. "You want _us_ ," Jesse blurted to Petra, green eyes wide, "to come with _you_."

"Consider it my charitable act for the day," Petra replied coolly.

"I'll consider it whatever you want me to consider it," Jesse almost _gushed_ as Evie managed to catch back up, "so long as I get to come."

Petra gave her a little nod, before glancing over at Evie. "Well, what about you?"

"What about me?"

"Do you want to tag along?" The way Petra used 'tag along' definitely made it sound like she was doing Evie a favor.

Evie sheepishly shook her head. "Sorry, I'm... I'm awkward. I'd probably ruin your deal. I think it's better if I _don't_ come along."

"Aw, c'mon, Evie," Jesse coaxed, giving her a grin, "the more the merrier! Besides, if there's more of us, this guy might be intimidated."

"... Jesse, I am literally as far from intimidating as I can get..."

Petra managed to turn her snort into a light cough.

"Well... yeah, okay, you have a point." Evie couldn't help but grin at Jesse's conceding expression, "but still! It could be fun!"

"Jesse, I _really_ don't think I should come, I don't want to ruin Petra's deal..."

"As long as you stay quiet," Petra suddenly spoke up, Evie blinking over at the redhead, "I don't think there's much of a chance that you can mess it up. And you... seem like a pretty quiet person."

Well, she wasn't WRONG...

"Oh." Evie paused, considering this. "You're sure?"

"Sure I'm sure."

"Oh." Another rather awkward pause as Evie considered this again. "Okay, then."

Well, if it just involved standing there and staying quiet, she could do that. It wasn't like Evie was the most talkative person on the planet.

"Great, that's decided, then!" Jesse said cheerfully, as the entire group came to a larger area of the cave. A crafting table sat next to a chest, right near a larger assortment of torches. The black-haired girl blinked at it (the one with long hair, not the wavy-haired one). "You just... keep a crafting table down here?"

"Comes in handy." Petra paused, before glancing over at Jesse, "since that wooden sword of yours got busted..."

"You're giving me a new one?" Jesse picked up immediately, eyes brightening.

Petra gave Jesse a lopsided, but friendly grin. "Even better. You can make your own. One stick, plus two stones, equals one sword." She glanced over at Evie, her grin widening a little bit, almost encouragingly. "Do you need one?"

"No, my lucky hoe will do," and Evie held it up, pulling it out of her pocket again.

Petra stared blankly at it, Jesse carefully making her way over towards the chest, before her eyes flickered back to Evie's face. "You're _sure_ you don't want..." Petra trailed off, but Evie knew what Petra wanted to say- _an actual weapon_.

"Petra, with how clumsy I am, I would be more likely to kill _myself_ rather than any mob I'm attacking, or attempting to kill anyways. Trust me. You _do not_ want to trust me with a weapon." Evie made a cutting motion with her arms to emphasize what she was saying, shaking her head emphatically.

"Well, if you're sure..." Petra glanced over at Jesse, who had paused in front of the chest and was looking at Petra questioningly, as if asking permission. "Just grab what you need."

"Oh! Okay. Thanks." Jesse opened the chest and began rummaging around inside, keeping her eyes fixed on the chest. "Hey, is all this stuff yours?"

Petra let out a small sigh. "No. We're just stealing from whoever was dumb enough to leave this here. Of _course_ it's mine."

Evie couldn't help but giggle at the sarcastic comment, which made Petra look over at Evie with an appraising sort of look. Not of approval, exactly... but it wasn't a particularly displeased expression, either.

"Just... making sure." Moments later, Jesse straightened back up, the stick and two stones perched in her hands as she stood up. "Oh! There we go. Jackpot." Moving over to the crafting table, she placed down the stick and the two stones on top of them. The clang of the sword being created rang out, and Jesse picked up the sword, holding it up. Evie couldn't see Jesse's expression too well, but what she _could_ see of it was pleased.

"See? Isn't it better when you make it yourself?" Petra asked, grinning at the petite girl. Jesse nodded as she turned around, sheathing the sword, Evie timidly approaching.

A moment passed.

"Evie are you _sure_ you don't want a-"

"Yes I'm sure, thank you Petra."

* * *

"Check it out!" Petra pointed, the moment they exited the cave, "Endercon's all lit up."

Evie turned to see fireworks going off above Endercon, sending out bright flowerbursts of color over the town. Jesse's expression lit up brighter than the fireworks. "No way- we won!" she exclaimed, grinning widely. "The Enderman was the right way to go!"

"It was cool," Evie agreed, giving Jesse a thumbs up.

"Good for you, Jesse," and Petra patted Jesse on the back.

"It's about time we beat Lukas and his gang of jerks. What kinda name is the Ocelots, anyway?" Jesse continued, putting her hands on her hips.

Evie stared blankly, not recognizing the name.

"You know? Lukas?" Jesse offered, when she noticed Evie's lack of recognition. Still nothing. "Leader of the Ocelots?" _Still_ nothing. "The blonde guy who's the leader of that group that was teasing you earlier today?"

 _Now_ Evie's expression cleared up. Lukas. Nice name. "Oh. Him." She paused. "He seemed nice, though. At least he wasn't joining his team."

"You know," Petra interrupted the conversation, sounding like she was picking her words carefully again, "Lukas might be kinda arrogant sometimes, but he _has_ come through for me in tricky situations. You might want to get to know him... just in case."

Jesse said nothing to that, just looking at Petra.

"He's good at building, that's for sure. It's always useful to have a guy like that around, no matter what you might think of him personally," Petra urged, slowly.

"He doesn't seem like he's mean or anything, either," Evie added.

Jesse glanced from Evie to Petra, before giving a noncommittal shrug. "Yeah, you guys... might be right." She sounded reluctant to commit to anything, but at least she was admitting that they had a point.

"I'm just saying," Petra continued, "if you run into him at Endercon, try talking to him."

Jesse's expression had closed up a bit now. "I don't need a lecture on the power of collaboration, Petra," she replied, a bit coldly.

"How about a lecture on the power of my fists?" Petra asked innocently. "It's short. But _deadly_."

Evie sensed that she should _probably_ try to change the subject before somebody got punched in the face, somebody namely being Jesse. "We should head towards Endercon now, right?"

The entire group started walking along the bridge. "Remember what Endercon was like _before_ it was cool?" Petra asked, almost a little wistfully.

Evie remembered, alright. It had only been a little affair at first, maybe a group of seven people playing around and goofing off, and then it had grown, and grown, and grown, and _grown_... she participated once or twice when it was a little affair.

"Remember what _we_ were like before _we_ were cool?" Jesse asked, giving Petra a grin.

Petra glanced sidelong at Jesse for a moment, remaining quiet for a good minute. "Some of us will never be cool."

Evie couldn't help but grin a little at that. That was certainly true of herself.

"Ha ha." Jesse's sarcastic reply made an already amused Evie start giggling, looking away from the other two to the other side of the bridge to avoid laughing.

Abruptly, her giggles died, and she screeched to a halt, making Petra and Jesse look over at her suddenly-slightly-stricken expression, before over at the other side of the bridge.

Several zombies and a few creepers were making their way onto the bridge.

"We've got creepers!" Evie squeaked a bit, backing up a step, and then turning to head back into the cave- only to spot more creepers emerging from the cave as well.

" _Crap!_ " Petra muttered, stepping back, the three of them looking around. It seemed like they were cornered...

Evie's eyes strayed to the water below them. But it was a pretty darn long drop...

Then again, staying on this bridge was almost definitely a recipe for certain death. The long drop was a recipe for... fairly certain death. At least it was a bigger chance of survival.

"Should we jump?" she asked Jesse, who happened to be nearer to her.

Jesse, who'd been edging closer and closer to the other two for almost protection, (strength in numbers, I guess) blinked at the question, before looking over the edge and down at the water, far, far below. "... Petra, what do you think?"

Petra swallowed, looking slightly nervous herself. "Well, I think there's only one way off this bridge. Whatever it is, we do it together." She glanced at Evie and Jesse, dark eyes flickering uncertainly for a moment- with what seemed like a flash of controlled _fear_ \- before she returned her gaze to the mobs approaching.

"... then let's jump," Jesse decided, glancing over at Evie anxiously. "Evie, you're fine with that?"

Evie looked down again. _Good thing I'm not afraid of heights._ "Sure," she said aloud, looking up and back around at the other black-haired girl.

"Here we go!" and Jesse moved forward and leaped off of the bridge, Evie hastily hopping off a moment later. She didn't know, but she assumed Petra was following.

Okay, how were you supposed to fall into water? You were supposed to dive in, right? Evie had never done a dive before. Your head was supposed to face down, right? Or was it supposed to be feet-first?

The fall seemed to be taking a long time, wind tearing at her hair and making it fly straight up in the air as the rushing air around her snatched at her clothing, defying gravity for a few moments. Maybe you were supposed to be facing down.

Evie glanced over at Petra, who was spread-eagle and flying towards the water with narrowed eyes- presumably since the rushing wind was pretty painful to keep your eyes open against. She attempted to follow Petra's lead, but the wind was too strong.

At the last second, Evie decided to flip over in mid-air. At least if she hit the water on her back it might hurt less.

A loud crashing sort of splash as her back slammed into the water, which was oddly cold (well... maybe not oddly. It was just colder than Evie was expecting), knocking all of the breath out of Evie and momentarily shocking her numb. Her lungs insisted that they didn't want to work for a second, water closing over her head...

And then she managed to regain control of her body, floating back to the surface on her back as her mouth opened and closed, dragging air back into her lungs. "Whew. Okay. Whew," she gasped softly, flipping over and allowing her feet to dip back into the water and keep her treading water.

Not too far away, Jesse floundered back to the surface as well, groaning loudly. "Ohhhh, it burns, it burns!" she moaned, as Petra also resurfaced. Her bandana was now soaking wet.

"Don't you know? You dive _into_ the water. You don't land on top of it!" Petra snapped, almost like a teacher scolding a student. There was a moment of silence, broken only by Jesse letting out a nearly inaudible sort of groan.

"Well, that was... breathtaking," Evie replied breathlessly, shaking the fact that she felt like a giant had just clapped her on the back with the force of a speeding truck off.

Petra glanced over at her, not saying anything, before giving her a little nod and a half-smile. "Yeah. It was kinda fun."

Fun was debatable. But a long moment of thought Evie had to agree with the statement. If not for the fact that they'd had to jump off a bridge to escape mobs, it was almost as if Evie had been riding one of those rollercoasters that goes up and drops straight down- breathtaking, knowing you'd be safe but a half moment of terror that you weren't going to be, and the sudden landing.

So it was with a small smile that Evie, after a long moment of thought, gave a small nod of agreement. "It really was."

* * *

 **A/N: Yay, they're not dead xD And Evie's a... bit of a thrill seeker. Jumping off cliffs doesn't seem to be too hard for her. (then again it's hard to be clumsy when you're just hurtling towards the ground xD)**

 **Next chapter, we meet Ivor, try to avoid Evie's not-very-nice teammates, and get scammed out of a diamond.**

 **Or maybe not. I don't know how long the next chapter will be.**

 **Once we reach Chapter 5, I will start replying to reviews! In chapter, not just... in general. xD**

 **x.X. A.L. X.x**


	4. Being Very Eloquent

The three of them walked into Endercon. They hadn't even gotten three feet past the initial 'gate' of the convention when Evie could hear the beat of the music booming through the area, vibrating through their feet a little- even from this distance from the actual source of the music.

"Let me know if you see Reuben anywhere," Jesse said, green eyes flicking over the area of the convention that they'd already entered with worry.

"Don't worry, Jesse, I'm sure he's fine," and Evie would've reached out to pat Jesse on the back reassuringly, even getting so far as to raise her hand and hover it over Jesse's back by a couple inches, before deciding against it- they really didn't know each other that well, after all- and lowering it again. "He's gotta be in here somewhere."

Despite Evie's attempt at reassuring Jesse, the black-haired girl's shoulders just sagged a little bit. "I sure hope you're right..."

"So," Petra spoke up, making Jesse and Evie both swivel to look at the redhead, "when we're making the deal, I need you guys to... let me do the talking. Okay?" And she shot them a quick grin.

Jesse didn't say anything for a moment- maybe to emphasize that she wouldn't be doing any talking, maybe she was still preoccupied over Reuben.

Evie glanced over at Jesse's face to see the girl's green eyes narrowed slightly in worry as she looked over at Petra.

Maybe it was both.

"I just... don't want anything to screw this up," Petra added a moment later, taking both Evie and Jesse's silence as maybe disagreement, or confusion.

"Sure," Jesse agreed, giving Petra an agreeing smile, "I'll let you handle it."

Evie gave a weak little thumbs' up and a small smile in agreement herself. She'd never been on a 'deal' before. Seemed kind of shady, but hey, she wasn't the one who usually did this thing. Petra did. And if Petra knew what she was doing, well, who was Evie to argue?

"And, if you want to be _really_ useful," Petra suggested, "try looking intimidating."

"Petra, I already said this, I am _literally_ as far from intimidating as I can get..."

Evie's weak little reply was cut off by Jesse turning to Petra a bit, still walking forward. "Like this?" she asked, voice holding a note of being eager to please Petra, and she punctuated the question by glaring at Petra and flexing her arms a little bit, letting out a little growl.

Evie shook her head a little bit, unable to hide a smile at that. Even when she was _trying_ , Jesse didn't look intimidating. Like, at all.

"I'm... less scared- _of_ -you, than scared- _for_ -you," Petra replied simply.

Evie didn't even _try_ to look intimidating for Petra's scrutiny. She was about as intimidating as a waffle. And unless you've got a phobia of waffles, that's really not intimidating at all.

"Jesse!"

The three girls turned to see the burly guy with the thick-looking green hoodie walking up, a little ways behind the shorter-but-still-taller-than-Jesse girl with curly black hair. Weren't they on Evie's team?

Upon being reminded of her team for the second time in an hour, Evie's eyes did a quick scan over Endercon. Nope, no sign of them anywhere. For now.

"And... Petra?" Olivia asked, sounding a bit confused.

"And... someone else," Axel added, his eyes shifting over so that he was regarding Evie with confusion.

"Hey. You guys know Petra. My new super-close friend." Evie was pretty sure Jesse was trying to sound cool. Unfortunately, she was failing miserably. Oddly enough, this was enough to put Evie at ease a little bit. At least she knew she wasn't the _only_ dork here. "We're super-close _now_."

Olivia and Axel both looked at Jesse with deadpan expressions, while Petra slapped her palm to her forehead. Evie just hid her smile a bit sheepishly- being new to this group, she didn't feel like she really had the right to laugh at Jesse.

Jesse rubbed the back of her head after a moment, giving them all a sheepish smile. "I- ran into her while I was looking for Reuben. Oh, and this is Evie." She gestured at the girl with wavy black hair and amber eyes, who automatically stiffened under the sudden scrutiny from the other two before giving them a little wave and smile.

"Um, hi."

"Hey," Olivia replied, giving her a polite-enough nod, while Axel vaguely gave her a wave in her direction before turning to face Jesse with a sympathetic look.

"Couldn't find him, huh?"

"He'll turn up sooner or later, I just _know_ it," Olivia spoke, but her voice faltered and it looked as though she were trying to convince _herself_ of the fact.

Jesse jerked her head over her shoulder at Evie. "She's the one who ran off to go find him back at Endercon too. We found him, but before we knew what was happening, we were under attack by a zombie horde. I told him to run... it was for his own good." Now even _Jesse_ sounded like she was trying to convince herself of the fact.

Axel paused, as if a thought had just occurred to him, before glancing over at the redhead. "What were _you_ doing in the woods, Petra?"

"Nothing," Petra spoke casually, shooting a glance in Jesse and Evie's direction as telling them to _not say anything_. "Just... drawn by the sound of Jesse and Evie's high-pitched screams."

"They weren't _that_ high-pitched," Jesse complained a bit.

Evie gave a self-deprecating shrug. "We would've been spider bait if she hadn't found us." She thought about mentioning her lucky hoe, but judging from the expressions both Jesse and Petra had given her earlier upon mentioning her lucky hoe (what was _wrong_ with a lucky hoe? There was nothing wrong with lucky hoes), she decided not to.

"Sorry we didn't come with you, Jesse," Axel apologized, his expression growing more sober. (Sober as in serious. Not the other meaning.)

"But, hey, we won!" Olivia exclaimed in an overly bright tone, as if trying to sound optimistic, and as if that was some sort of cue, all three of them turned to stare up at the huge Enderman statue. Redstone sparks shot off behind it, and its purple stained-glass eyes glowed a bit.

It was... actually very realistic, despite being made out of wool and a few blocks of purple stained glass.

Axel's smile collapsed after a moment. "Abandoning friends in their time of need paid off yet again."

" _Very_ lifelike," Evie spoke up, deciding to try to take their minds off of the whole thing so that they didn't just spend the entire evening feeling guilty. "I'm a little nervous to make eye contact with it."

Paradoxically, when Evie knew she wasn't supposed to look at something, she got an uncontrollable urge to peek at it anyways.

Olivia's smile also faded. "I still wish I'd gotten that part in the back to look better."

"I could've fit more fireworks in there... somewhere."

"Hey, _I_ like it!" Evie paused from where she'd splayed out her hands for emphasis, amber eyes flickering up to the sky thoughtfully. "I mean, I don't actually know how much that counts for it. But you guys won, so other people liked it too!"

Jesse grinned, clapping Evie on the back. "Yeah, Evie's right. I'm _proud_ of you guys!" she exclaimed, giving her teammates a cheerful smile.

"Awww, shucks," and Axel gave them both a little smile.

"Don't make me blush." Olivia paused, her expression growing more playfully serious a moment later. "Seriously. _Don't._ "

There was a momentary pause as they processed this, before Petra spoke up, lightly, "Hey, Jesse, Evie, it's time to to see about that... thing."

Evie couldn't really talk, but subtlety didn't seem to be Petra's strong suit.

Jesse looked confused for a moment, before her eyes widened in comprehension. "Oh. Right. The- thing."

Apparently, it wasn't Jesse's either.

"Subtle," Olivia told her.

"Yeah-?"

"As a punch to the face."

Evie had to hide another grin at that. Olivia was nice and sarcastic, it seemed, despite the almost childish-hairstyle she sported.

Olivia let a slight smile come over her face at that a moment later anyhow. "Axel and I were going to head into Endercon anyway. See you in there?" she asked, casually enough.

"I heard there was free cake near the map booth!" Axel said cheerfully, as if that decided the whole thing. Olivia subtly rolled her eyes at him, although she didn't say anything.

Evie's grin grew even more. Yes, she _definitely_ liked Olivia.

The two of them moved off, Petra watching them, before leaning over to the other two girls and pointing off at an alley near the entrance- one that was dark and, frankly, slightly creepy-looking. "Hurry- we're supposed to meet in that alley over there."

Yes, that seemed about right.

"Dark," Jesse whispered, as they followed Petra deeper into the alley, "dark. _Very_ dark in here."

"You said it," Evie mumbled, glancing around them nervously. She might live in a cave, but even THAT was better lit than this alleyway. Seriously- mobs that spawn _in the dark_ could spawn in _this particular alleyway._ Within the boundaries of EnderCon. Wasn't that a bad idea?!

Petra suddenly came to a halt, which caused Jesse to come to a halt, which caused Evie to run right into Jesse's back by accident. Evie felt her cheeks turn pink in embarrassment as she mumbled a weak apology. The alley had widened into an area that was better lit than the actual alley itself, before tapering again into another alley a little ways down.

"That's... weird," and Petra put her hands on her hips as she surveyed the alleyway, "he said to meet him at the dark, creepy alley close to the gates, but he's not here."

It was hard to see Petra in the darkness, but Evie was about ninety percent sure that Petra was being dead serious about this.

"Maybe he's late," Petra finished, putting her hands on her hips.

"Are you sure that this is the dark... creepy alley that he meant?" Jesse asked, hesitantly.

The redhead shifted a bit, making a thoughtful sort of humming sound. "I... _was._ Okay, new plan," and she turned around to give the other two a decisive look. "You two stay here just in case this _is_ the spot he meant, and I'll look around. I guess I could've heard him wrong." Petra paused, eyes narrowing in slight worry. "Then again, I've never gotten a meet-up spot wrong before."

Jesse gave Petra a thumbs' up and a weak smile, giving Evie next to her a slightly nervous grin. "Sure. We'll hold down the fort. Right, Evie?" And Jesse immediately shot Evie a look- the sort of look that said that as long as Evie was there, she'd be able to stay in this dark, creepy alley.

Which was... kind of flattering, but Evie thought maybe the trust that Jesse was apparently placing in her was a bit misplaced.

"Sure. Cool. Yeah." Evie blushed a little at the three different answers she'd just provided. Petra was nice enough to not point out that only one answer was required, or the fact that Evie was now pinker than the inside of a watermelon.

"Thanks, guys." The redhead was already starting to walk away. "I'll be back before you know it. If he shows up while he's gone, just stall for me."

"Stall for you. Okay, sure," Evie said, slightly weakly, as Petra disappeared out of the alley. "Can do."

She almost wanted to call the redhead back and point out that Petra had said that all she had to do was stand there and be quiet. She was pretty sure this wasn't in her job description, but...

... well, it was a little odd. She'd barely met Petra, and yet she already felt rather eager to please the redhead.

Well, but that was probably just Evie trying to be the amicable person she usually was, so maybe it wasn't that weird.

" _Ahem._ "

Jesse let out an alarmed yell and leaped back, straight into Evie. Evie, who was not expecting the sudden movement, flinched herself, staggered backwards, and managed to full-out slam her spine and the back of her head into a brick wall.

It took a great amount of mental concentration to keep herself from swearing loudly.

"And just who might _you_ two be?" A man with long black hair that hung to his shoulders and a beard, pale skin that was almost sallow, and narrowed dark blue eyes stepped into the light, which threw slightly dramatic shadows over his face.

Jesse cleared her throat after a minute, straightening up and sending him a glare to match his. "The name's Jesse," she said, almost coldly. "What's it to _you?_ "

Evie gave a feeble wave, still more focused on her throbbing head than the whole situation unfolding in front of them.

"I'm supposed to meet with _Petra,_ not whatever _you two_ are supposed to be," the man nearly _snarled_ , eyes narrowing even further.

"A... human being?" Evie meekly asked.

To her credit, Jesse's glare turned into a slightly odd expression- something that was between a grin and a scowl- at the tentatively asked question as she snorted, although the man's expression didn't change. Then again, Evie had asked the question extremely quietly, so maybe he hadn't heard the comment.

"Give me _one good reason_ why I shouldn't just walk out of here right now," the man threatened the two of them.

Jesse's expression recomposed itself into a more defensive expression, as she crossed her arms. "We're with Petra."

"My deal is with _her_ , not her partner," the man snapped.

"She'll be here. But... we can get started without her."

Evie's head immediately snapped around to stare at Jesse with a completely befuddled expression. _We can?_

"Do you have the skull?"

Immediately, Jesse's confrontational manner dropped, the slightly-shorter girl stepping back almost automatically with a deer-caught-in-headlights expression on her face. "Well- Uh-"

Despite the fact that Evie's role in the whole matter was to stay quiet, judging by the slightly panicked expression on Jesse's face, if Jesse kept doing all the talking, this guy might actually follow up on his threat and walk out of the alleyway, and despite how shady Evie thought this was, she was pretty sure Petra wouldn't be too happy if they messed up the deal.

So, being the extremely eloquent person that she was (that was sarcasm, by the way. Really, really heavy sarcasm), Evie decided to speak up.

"Uh, no, we don't have the skull. I mean, we _do_. I mean-" Evie mentally slapped herself in the face. This was going _so_ well already, wasn't it? "Well, _we_ don't-" She hastily gestured at herself and Jesse, just in case her point wasn't clear- "but Petra does. She'll be here soon. In a minute. Yeah."

The man stayed silent for a moment, staring at Evie silently as if he was trying to decipher her hastily-blurted words, before shrugging slightly. "Well, as long as she's coming... I suppose it won't kill me to wait a little longer."

The three of them proceeded to lapse into an uncomfortable silence that lasted for _at least_ a minute. And sixty seconds doesn't seem like a long time, so let me assure you- when you've got a slightly-creepy guy staring at you with hard eyes expectantly with someone you don't know all that well standing there next to you, believe me- it's a _long_ time.

"Ivor!"

The man immediately turned a bit, his expression softening into a more pleased one. "Ah. There she is."

Evie mentally breathed the biggest sigh of relief ever as Petra came strolling back into the alley, sounding casual. "Sorry for being late. But good things are worth waiting for." Her expression became more serious, almost business-like, a moment later. "I've got what you asked for-"

" _If_ ," Jesse spoke up, suddenly galvanized by Petra's reappearance, " _you_ have what you promised _us_."

It was a bit difficult to put what was going through Evie's mind in words in the common English language, but it was something like this:

 _What Jesse no gah._

(Although 'gah' is not a word in the English language.)

* * *

 **A/N: Oh boy. Jesse, what are you doing? xD**

 **Evie is clearly having a small panic attack with Ivor's appearance and having to speak. Really was not in her job description. xD**

 **Responses to reviews will start being posted next chapter! (If I get any, haha.)**

 **x.X. A.L. X.x**


	5. Lots of Being Sneaky

"You didn't mention an 'us' when we first met," Ivor said, softly and in a very, very menacing tone. "And I don't like surprises." He proceeded to gesture in a wide, sweeping motion at Jesse and Evie collectively, his voice growing sharper and more threatening. "If these are the sorts of people you associate with-"

Evie had to wonder why she was being included in the group. She hadn't said anything so far.

Wait, had she? Rambled on a bit about how Petra had the Wither Skull but they didn't... no, that was literally it.

"Perhaps we should just call the whole thing off!" Ivor finished, glaring back at Petra.

"My friends are fine, right guys?" Petra immediately asked, voice adopting a placating tone, "There's no problem here." And she turned and shot Jesse and Evie a glare, which Evie shrank back at. That was a little unfair. She'd done her best to stay quiet throughout the whole ordeal. "Let's not be hasty, okay? This is just a... little misunderstanding."

Jesse, thankfully, took the hint and just shrugged a little. "I'm cool if he's cool," she replied, a bit coolly. With that, all three of the almost expectantly turned to stare at Evie, waiting for her answer.

Evie was now more than a little uneasy. One person staring at you is already awkward and, honestly, more than a little intimidating. _Three_ is just overkill.

"Um- yeah. Sure. I'm totally okay with it, too. I'm cool. Let's roll. I mean, let's do this. I mean-" Evie decided to stop talking and just keep her mouth shut, like she'd been told to do before.

"It's settled, then," and Petra turned back to Ivor with an almost slightly relieved smile. "We're all cool."

"Proceed, then," Ivor replied, in a suddenly-very-calm voice. Evie couldn't help but frown a little- the tone of voice which he had just said that with was almost... a little sinister.

Well, but then again, everything about this guy kind of creeped her out, so maybe it was just an overreaction.

Calmly, Petra reached into her back pocket and pulled out the Wither Skull, holding it out to Ivor. Almost delicately, the older man took ahold of the skull, twisting and turning it in his hands as he scrutinized it, a strange smile coming over his face- definitely a sort of sinister grin, she instinctively thought.

Evie told her instincts to shut up. It wasn't like Ivor could help looking sinister more than she could help being clumsy.

"I'll take that diamond now," Petra said quietly, as if reminding Ivor of the deal.

He glanced up, eyes suddenly seeming to have lost all interest in the three girls. "Take it. You've earned it."

Evie quashed down the instinctive urge to think- once again- that this guy was acting awfully weird. Maybe that was just the way he acted. Who was Evie to judge?

She belatedly realized that Ivor had already started moving away to leave, while Petra and Jesse had moved to go dig through a chest. Meanwhile, Evie was left standing in the middle of the alleyway like a sort of idiot.

"Uh-!" Ivor glanced over his shoulder at Jesse's sudden, blurted exclamation, dark blue eyes flashing with an almost _alarmed_ look, before he started speeding up, as if eager to get out of the alley.

Okay, forget it. Ivor might not be able to help looking suspicious or acting weird, but that was just really sketchy behavior.

"This isn't a diamond!" Jesse finished, sounding almost startled.

" _No_ \- it's _lapis!_ " Petra groaned, standing up with the lapis piece in her hand and glaring at it as if she wanted to make it self-destruct with her gaze alone. Actually, with how intensely Petra was glowering at it, Evie was a little surprised that it hadn't _already_ self-destructed.

Evie immediately, without another word, took off after Ivor. That probably was going to alarm the two of them, especially since they didn't know her, but right now, catching Ivor was more important than explaining that she was trying to catch Ivor.

Which was a commendable thought, but as she came skidding out of the other end of the alley- the one Ivor had approached through- Evie's foot caught on a particularly slick cobblestone and knocked her completely off-balance. She instinctively threw her arms out to catch herself, but being the clumsy person she was and forgetting that fact, the motion just knocked her even more off-balance and sent her toppling to the ground.

Ouch.

Evie managed to get back to her feet a moment later, wincing breathlessly as she felt the spot where her shoulder had slammed against cobblestone twinge with pain. That was definitely going to leave a bruise. At least she hadn't knocked her head against anything.

Although she'd lost track of Ivor. Damn.

"Honestly, Camry-"

Evie's head automatically snapped up at the name and the familiar voice. Yep- that was Max, alright. With Christina and Camry at his side. Camry's long, dark brown hair was tied up in a messy ponytail as usual, and Max's usual, spiky hairstyle was blaringly obvious.

Immediately, Evie disappeared into the crowd, darting around people and trying to avoid crashing into them, tripping, or doing something else that might draw attention and therefore get their attention.

Call her a coward, but she did _not_ want to deal with those three. Not right now, at least. Not while she was trying to track Ivor back down.

She spotted Lukas standing near a booth, in fact leaning against it, and debated hiding behind him or trying to engage in a conversation with him, before deciding that the three of them were too close- Christina's voice carried clearly across even the din of the convention- and turning a corner in the winding paths of the convention, ignoring the fact that she was _fairly_ certain that she spotted Axel- before spotting a particularly crowded area of the convention and squeezing through two people into it.

And then promptly running into someone. Great. Very elegant.

"Hey, what are you-?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"

Evie paused in surprise as she looked up to see a pair of celery green eyes glance down to meet hers. _Oh, great. Another bully to worry about._

"-seriously, Christina, get _over_ it-"

"She's such a little busybody-" The actual term was much ruder, but Evie's ears may have censored it out. "- with the _nerve_ to say _we're_ not good friends? She's lucky we let her hang out with us!"

Aiden glanced over his shoulder to see who was talking, before back at Evie, who now was searching for a spot to hide, just in case they _did_ spot her. "Are you hiding from them?" he asked quietly, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at her ex-teammates, who were walking through the crowd and shoving through with reckless abandon.

Evie remained silent for a minute, before realizing there wasn't much of a point to doing so- it wasn't like they were on her team anymore. And if Aiden called her out, it might waste time, but having them yell her down now might end up being quicker in the long run. "Attempting to, yes."

Aiden chewed his lip, thoughtfully. Evie squeezed her eyes shut a little bit, bracing herself for him to call out and attract her ex-teammate's attention.

"... alright, c'mere."

"... ah?" Right. Yes. Very eloquent, Evie. Despite her reluctance to have a confrontation with her ex-teammates, she opened her eyes to see that Aiden was hastily beckoning her towards him.

Evie blinked at him, then at her ex-teammates, who were getting closer and closer by the minute, before taking the tiniest step towards him.

Aiden rolled his eyes at the girl and reached out, grabbing her arm and yanking her towards him in a powerful pull. Evie stumbled in surprise, actually staggering and nearly tripping and falling-

Before getting yanked back up to her feet, making her wince a little bit as he, once again, nearly yanked her arm out of its socket. "Careful," he said vaguely, but Aiden was already starting to walk through the crowd casually, one hand keeping Evie's arm trapped in his grip.

Evie wasn't the tallest person ever, but she could clearly see that they were walking in the direction that her teammates seemed to be in.

"Don't stare at them, but don't ignore them, either," Aiden said, quietly but loud enough for her to still hear over the din of Endercon. "You'll attract attention either way. And for goodness' sake, look more confident!" he added, shooting her a slightly irked expression, "you look like I'm kidnapping you or something."

Evie glanced at Aiden, who was striding forward confidently, as if he was headed somewhere. Now that she thought about it, she probably looked as though she were being dragged along against her will and somewhat frightened.

"Well, _are_ you kidnapping me?" she asked meekly, although she did straighten up quickly and start walking along more briskly.

Aiden shot her a look, although he smirked a little upon spotting the meek smile on her face, realizing that she was making a joke. "Hmm... you're like a small pet. Probably not a lot of trouble to keep. Yeah, if Lukas had brought the kidnapping equipment, probably would've gone for it," he replied, amusement more evident in his voice.

Evie smiled back a little, feeling tension go out of her shoulders. "You sure I wouldn't be much trouble?" she asked, the faintest iota of a teasing tone entering her voice.

Aiden let out a brief, amused chuckle at the joke. Vaguely, Evie noticed that they had walked behind her teammates and were now cutting through several of the booths to reach a different area. "Yeah, I shouldn't think so."

(Through several of the beams holding up the other booths, Evie noticed there was a butcher's booth. Really? Why was there a _butcher_ at Endercon? Evie knew that people sold literally everything at Endercon, but a _butcher's booth_? Really?)

"Alright, they turned off a different direction," Aiden said, suddenly coming to a stop. Evie didn't manage to stop in time and collided straight into him, making the taller boy stumble with a surprised sort of "oof".

Sometimes, Evie felt like an elephant in a glass factory.

"You should be good," Aiden finished, once he'd regained his balance and was rubbing his back with a slightly sheepish grin, releasing Evie's arm.

Evie gave him a grateful smile, shoulders relaxing significantly. "Uhh... thanks for that just now. I mean, you didn't have to do anything- I mean, you _could've_ done something but it might've been bad- I mean I'm not saying what you're doing is bad-" she stammered, feeling her cheeks grow red at her flubbing what she'd been trying to say.

Even though she'd relaxed around the guy a bit, clearly her tongue hadn't gotten the memo.

To his credit, Aiden didn't sneer at her or anything. He just laughed. "I get what you mean, don't worry." He gave her a friendly clap on the shoulder, and began to walk back in the other direction.

A thought occurred to Evie, and her brow creased a bit as she realized this. "Uh- hey, w-wait a second, please."

"Hm?" he turned back around, raising his eyebrows at her a little bit as he returned his attention to the shorter female.

Evie paused. Well, how was she going to put this diplomatically? What she wanted to ask wasn't exactly a diplomatic question. Or even a polite one.

Well, but it wasn't like she could just say nothing now that he'd turned back around and was looking at her.

"Why, uh... why are you being... well, you know. Decent. I mean, not, not _decent_ , I'm sure you're a decent person- nice! Why are you being _nice_ to me." Evie wasn't turning redder than a pomegranate right now. Nope. No idea what you're talking about.

Aiden now looked slightly confused by the question.

Well, either he was confused by the question, or he was confused by the tangled mess of words that Evie had just spit out. Probably both.

"What do you mean?"

"I, I, I mean," Evie stammered, feeling her face grow even redder by the second, "earlier, at the building competition, when we were at the booth- not the booth where we build stuff, I mean the booth where you have to enter the actual booths- or the competition site, I mean, you know what I mean, you were-"

"Oh!" Aiden cut her off, to her immense relief- she'd been, as usual, making a complete fool out of herself with her rambled stuttering- and looked embarrassed. "Uh, I forgot about that. Sorry. I was just really stressed out and nervous for the competition. Put that down to nerves."

"Oh." Well, she supposed that made sense. Whenever Christina got stressed, she would snarl at people a lot, and whenever Camry got stressed or nervous, she'd chew her nails, and when Max got nervous, he would become oddly physical and shove people around a little bit. So she supposed Aiden acting like a jerk before the competition because he was stressed out wasn't too bad. "Okay then."

Aiden paused, still facing Evie, before extending his hand slightly, as if he was going to give her a handshake. His eyes were filled with doubt as he tilted his head to one side, almost childishly. "Uhh, so... are we cool?" he asked, hesitantly.

Evie blinked at Aiden almost owlishly in surprise. This was a _very_ big jump from the sneering male she'd met earlier today at the building competition.

But not one she was particularly displeased with.

"Um... yeah, okay. Sure. I mean, yes. I mean, we're cool. Yes. We're cool. Mm-hm." Evie felt her cheeks grow warm as she reached out and gave his hand a quick shake, releasing it as quickly as possible- it was better to shake his hand quickly than to accidentally hold onto it for a period of time that was just awkward.

Aiden laughed again, but it wasn't a mean one, like earlier at the building competition. This one just sounded more mild. "Cool. Maybe I'll see you around sometime."

"I mean, I don't really think that's likely, I'm the biggest wallflower I know..."

Aiden shrugged nonchalantly at the comment. "Flowers are pretty, aren't they? In that case, you'll be easy to spot."

Evie abruptly blinked, feeling her cheeks grow even warmer, and for once it wasn't because she'd done something embarrassing. Unbeknownst to Evie, she was actually starting to arch her eyebrow at him a little, almost in a skeptical way.

"What?" Aiden blinked himself, looking confused. "Did I say something?"

She could practically see the cogs in his brain turning as he cast his mind back to what he'd just said. And then his _own_ face turned bright red as his eyes widened in realization, a slightly embarrassed look coming over his own face as he realized the implication of what he'd just said.

"... that wasn't flirting, okay? I wasn't trying to flirt with you, I swear."

"Uh... okay." Evie blinked at Aiden as he awkwardly scratched his cheek, and then waved a bit, and then awkwardly saluted before turning on his heel and walking back through the crowd, marching through as if he was eager to get away from her.

"... oh, wait, I didn't ask him if he saw Ivor..."

During those several moments of panic and movement, it had completely slipped Evie's mind to ask if Aiden had spotted the older man.

"... well, good to know that I'm not the only one that can be a huge dork, I guess," Evie mumbled, rubbing her cheek a little bit and turning around again, scanning the crowd-

And then seeing a familiar, black-haired, brown-robed figure striding through the crowd towards the keynote.

Instantly, Evie began to speedwalk after him, weaving a path through the crowd and always keeping him a good distance away- that way, if he looked back, he might spot her, but that wasn't necessarily an indication that she was following him.

Besides, Evie was not the most outstanding person of all time, as she had just pointed out to Aiden. The chances that he'd notice her were very small.

She was so busy trying not to get spotted while keeping her distance and also keeping an eye on him, that she barely noticed that he'd angled around the ticket-keeper, walking through a booth- which she followed him through- before making his way towards the keynote.

Right before he was well and truly on the way to the keynote, however, he turned around.

* * *

 **A/N: Aaaand cliffhanger. xD**

 **Sorry. Couldn't resist.**

 **Anyway, thanks to everyone for reading what I've got of Minecraft: Normal Mode so far! I'm super, super excited to get this story going, although this is only while I'm on probation from FFN, so once I'm off probation and can update fanfictions again, this story might take a hiatus, though I will definitely be certain to let you guys know.**

 **Since all of the forums that I currently have the story uploaded on allow me to reply to reviews directly, I won't do the responses until I publish the fanfiction on FFN.**

 **Well, that's all for now, so see ya, so long, and g'bye!**

 **x.X. A.L. X.x**


	6. A Change In Perspective

Evie's nerves were already on high alert, so the moment he turned to look over his shoulder, the short girl instinctively flung herself into a nearby bush, rustling several leaves and banging her elbow painfully on the ground, sending a stilted jolt of pain up the nerve and numbing it.

She forced herself to bite her tongue and remain perfectly still despite the fact that she'd probably just given herself a bruise (again, as per usual), peering at Ivor through the leafy branches blocking her from his view, but allowing her to see him through the foliage.

After what felt like three centuries and a year but was probably in fact ten seconds of the man staring in her direction searchingly, Ivor turned back around, breaking into a light run and heading straight for the keynote.

Straightening up, Evie quickly dusted a few leaves out of her black hair before following after him, being careful to maintain her distance in case he was to turn around unexpectedly again.

Also, she maintained her distance in case she suddenly tripped or did something else equally stupid that would attract his attention. Maybe if she kept her distance, he wouldn't be able to tell who she was. She was fairly ordinary-looking, after all.

But, in a stroke of very good luck (for once), Evie was _not_ spotted, and she did _not_ trip and fall flat on her face, as she tailed Ivor into the keynote without him noticing once that someone was on his tail.

(Well, she did _trip_ once, but she didn't fall flat on her face. That was something)

* * *

Several minutes earlier, Jesse looked up in alarm at the sound of footsteps, just in time to spot Evie disappearing around the corner herself.

"Evie, where are you going?!" she shouted, but the girl was either already out of earshot or purposefully ignoring her. It wasn't like Jesse knew the slightly-taller girl well enough to pass judgement on her.

"Of all the dirty, underhanded tricks to pull... I can't believe that guy pulled one over on _me!_ " Petra growled, slightly under her breath, still fixated on Ivor. "Do you think Evie was with Ivor? Do you think she knew about it?"

And now Jesse was backed into a corner. She didn't know Evie well enough to go either way. Evie seemed to be nice, quite polite, if not rather shy, and seemed to have a helpful sort of tendency. However, Jesse had only known her for the greater part of an hour or so, and even then she really didn't know anything at all about Evie. For all she knew, Evie had been pretending.

"Welllll," Jesse said slowly, dragging out the 'l' sound, "I don't _think_ she was with Ivor on this... but seeing as she just ran off, there's a distinct possibility."

Petra shoved the lapis into her pocket after giving it another disgusted look. "Screw _this_ \- c'mon!" And, just like Evie had a minute before, the redhead sprinted out of the alley, forcing Jesse to break into a sprint after her.

"Either I'm getting that diamond, _or_ I'm getting my skull back," Petra nearly _snarled_ as she ran full-speed down the alleyway.

" _Or,_ you'll make him pay," Jesse added, her gaze hardening, before lightening a little as she gave Petra a small smile. "Right? Right?"

Petra either decided to ignore Jesse's attempt at calming her down, or wasn't paying enough attention to it to be calmed down, because she just said, "C'mon," and turned back to the front as she sprinted out.

As they emerged from the alleyway, the redhead looked around, rapidly. "Do you see them anywhere?" she asked, eyes narrowed.

The two of them scanned the entirety of Endercon from where they were, but in the mess of color and people, Ivor would've just blended right in. And Evie, who wore a t-shirt and jeans and looked as ordinary as anyone else Jesse knew? You'd have better luck throwing a gold ingot down into a well and hoping you'd get it back again.

"We lost them!" Jesse said, frowning.

"Then we'll just have to find them again. Keep an eye out for both of them, okay?" And with that, Petra darted off into the crowd, leaving Jesse to the booths that lined the pathways. Jesse stepped into the throng of people, pushing past gently ( _gently_ ) and looking around. Excluding a rather obnoxious group of three who seemed to be complaining loudly, she didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

She stepped forward, catching a glimpse of Gabriel the Warrior walking through the crowd-

Before getting shoved aside as eager fans flooded towards the man and his bodyguards like moths flock to a light. "Gabriel! _Gabriel!_ " a fan shouted eagerly, before the bodyguard turned around to block the way as Gabriel disappeared from sight.

"Step aside, please!"

"I have just one question!"

"Hold all of your questions until the keynote."

"But the keynote's sold out!"

"Hold all your questions anyway!"

Jesse nearly _snorted_ at that, but kept walking forward anyways. She didn't have time to worry about it- she had to worry about finding Ivor and Evie.

And figuring out exactly _what_ Evie had been doing when she'd run off.

"Hey."

Jesse started, looking up to see Lukas leaning against a booth and giving her a friendly, slightly awkward wave. "Oh- uh- 'sup?" Jesse asked, coming over and putting a hand on her hip lightly.

"'Sup."

"Nothing. 'Sup with you?" the black-haired girl asked, brushing a stray lock of hair out of her face.

"Nothing. 'Sup with _you?_ " Lukas parroted back.

Jesse blinked, removing her hands from her hips. "I... just said. Nothing."

There was a slightly awkward pause as Lukas processed the fact, before he rubbed the back of his head slightly. "Uh, so... congrats on the win." And he gave her a friendly smile. "I mean, I still think our beacon was _amazing_ , but... you... guys did a good job, too."

Jesse blinked at Lukas again in surprise.

Was...

Was Lukas _complimenting_ their build?

"I mean, I thought the whole monster theme was cool, but... fireworks, too?" Lukas continued babbling on, looking more and more nervous with each passing second, "It was... sorta cool."

"Thanks," Jesse said, a little slowly as she gave him a little smile herself, "your beacon wasn't too shabby."

"You don't have to do that, okay?" the blonde replied, giving her a wry sort of smile, "you guys won fair and square."

There was a moment of pause where Jesse toyed with the idea of asking Lukas for help. On one hand, he _was_ the leader of a team whose members basically bullied _her_ team... but on the other hand, he never participated in the bullying.

"Hey... you didn't happen to see a creepy guy with long hair and a beard roaming around, did you?" she finally asked, narrowing her eyes at Lukas a little bit. "Oh, or that girl that Aiden was bothering at the entrance to the building competition earlier?"

Lukas's brow creased as he frowned thoughtfully. "I don't _think_ so... no, wait, I _did_ see her pass by a minute earlier, but not the guy." He paused. "Why?"

"He kinda... scammed Petra out of a diamond earlier. And Evie- the girl," Jesse added, upon seeing Lukas's slightly blank expression, "went running after him. I don't know where she is."

Lukas's eyes immediately widened at that. It was a well-known fact that you didn't mess with Petra in town. " _Whoa-_ everyone knows you _don't_ mess with Petra." He paused, glancing at the ground and narrowing his eyes a bit. "Not if you know what's good for you," he added, in a bit of an undertone, before looking back up at Jesse and giving her a friendly-enough nod. "I'll keep an eye out for both of them, okay?"

"Thanks," and Jesse returned the friendly-enough nod. "I appreciate it."

An awkward silence passed. The rivalry between their teams, and the unspoken tension between most of the other members didn't make the pause friendly, or smooth over the situation.

"So, uh..." Lukas rubbed the back of his head, sheepishly. "We're cool?"

"Yeah." And Jesse gave him a polite-enough nod in return. "We're cool."

"Cool, cool."

Jesse paused, before smoothly stepping in with "Cool beans."

"Cool-o-rama," Lukas replied, without even cracking a smile at that. Jesse did, though, and she let out a light laugh at the reply.

"Ha! See you later, Lukas."

"Yeah, see ya," and he gave her a quick nod and a little wave as she moved off into the crowd again.

Passing a DJ, she drew level with Axel, who was standing in front of some sort of weird chicken machine. Up above, a chicken stepped onto a pressure plate, and the block below was whisked out from beneath it, dropping it into the pen below with the rest of the chickens.

"Thought you could wiggle out of that trap, huh?" Axel taunted, clearly enjoying himself with watching the chicken machine, "well, wiggle as much as you want. You're not going anywhere."

"Axel, listen up," Jesse said urgently, noting how the burlier boy turned to face her a little, "any chance you've seen a creepy-looking beard-y guy or that girl who was at the entrance to the building competition earlier? Anywhere?"

Axel shook his head, eyes still fixed on the chicken machine. "Nah, Petra told me what happened. I'm keeping an eye out for both of 'em."

Jesse arched her eyebrow, giving Axel a look that clearly read that she didn't believe him. Especially since _both_ his eyes were focused on the chicken machine.

After a moment, Axel's shoulders came up in a helpless shrug. "Okay, so I got a _little_ distracted. It's just that this machine presses all my buttons- unnecessarily complicated and mean to birds for no reason. It's just, when something like this calls, you just gotta answer."

"We _really_ need your help, Axel," Jesse said insistently, "if we don't find the guy soon, we might _never_ find him. And Evie, well..." She trailed off. What was she supposed to say? She was curious about what the girl was going to say? She wanted to know if Evie was actually a nice person or not?

Well, she sure _hoped_ Evie was actually a nice person.

"I was _looking_ ," Axel protested, "I just got distracted."

Jesse paused, glancing from Axel to the machine herself, before back at Axel. "Hey, have you seen Reuben anywhere?" she tried. "I was hoping that he made it to town while I was distracted."

"Haven't seen hide nor hair," Axel said, vaguely. "But I'm sure he's fine. He's a tough little ham."

" _Axel._ " This time, Jesse wasn't using her usual friendly tone- she was using her stern voice. And when she used her stern voice, she meant business.

"All right, all right," Axel groaned, playfully enough, "I'll look." He paused, before raising his eyes back up to the top of the machine. "As soon as I watch _one more chicken_ get owned."

Jesse rolled her eyes, turning back to face the rest of the crowd- just in time to spot someone with brownish clothing and long black hair walking through the crowd. "Ha!" Her eyes narrowed a bit victoriously. "I see you _now,_ weirdo."

She moved forward to follow Ivor- only for Aiden to pop out from behind someone, making her stumble back to avoid clonking her head into his, a nasty sort of smile on his face. "Well, if it isn't Team Trashbag!" he sneered.

Jesse tried to edge around him to keep her eyes on Ivor, but Aiden just shifted each time so that he blocked her gaze. "How's your _stupid pig?_ I hear that intense heat causes brain damage."

He paused a moment later. "Boosts the flavor something _crazy_ though."

"Look, Aiden, I don't have time for this," Jesse snapped, her usual good temper deserting her. "I'm busy looking for Evie and this creepy guy, so if you don't mind waiting until later-"

"Evie? Who's that?"

Jesse was about to snap at the bully again, when she noticed that Aiden didn't sound sarcastic- he just genuinely sounded and looked confused at the unfamiliar name. "Oh. Uh... Evie?"

No reaction. He was still staring at her blankly.

"The girl you were bullying earlier at the entrance to Endercon?" Jesse tried again.

 _Now_ she got a hint of recognition in his eyes. "Oh- so _that's_ her name," he murmured, celery-green eyes clearing up a bit in thought... before they narrowed again. "You said you were looking for her? Why?" he asked, sounding... almost defensive.

"So you _have_ seen her?" Jesse jumped on his tone, but he waved his hand dismissively, brushing that aside.

"First tell me why you're looking for her."

"Long story short, Petra got cheated out of a deal by the creepy guy with a beard," Jesse said hastily, not bothering to use Ivor's name- Aiden probably wouldn't know the guy- "and Evie ran off after him. I'm just making sure she's okay."

 _And_ , she added mentally, _making sure she's who I thought she was._

Aiden squinted at Jesse for a full minute, long enough for Jesse to debate pushing past him and getting moving, before he abruptly said, "Earlier she was hiding from a group of people that was passing through. I helped her avoid them and left her over past that corner," and he gave a vague wave to his right behind him. "Didn't see the guy you're looking for, though."

He paused, before adding, as if it was a second thought (and since it was Jesse he was talking to, it probably was), "Sorry."

"Oh," Jesse said, slightly taken aback by the sudden flow of information- from _Aiden_ , no less- "I- I see. Thanks."

"No problem," Aiden said simply enough, giving her a nonchalant shrug. And considering how he usually sneered at her, this was weirder than if Aiden had just started speaking in fluent French. Actually, Jesse would've been _less_ surprised if he'd started speaking in fluent French.

Nice Aiden... did not really compute.

"Um... so..." Jesse rubbed the back of her head awkwardly. "Uh... bye."

Aiden lifted his hand and gave it a slight wave, stepping aside to let her pass with a more mild expression on his face. Not exactly a _smile_... but he wasn't sneering at her, at least. That was something.

Jesse gingerly stepped past him with an acknowledging nod, making her way after the person she'd spotted earlier. She'd lost track of him, but now that she was getting to a spot where the crowd was getting thinner, she spotted Ivor.

Or... was it? The hair was less like _black_ and more like very dark brown. And the robes were of a more greenish tinge than she remembered. Besides, the robes- if that was _actually_ what this person was even wearing- seemed to be more formfitting than before.

Now rather doubtful, Jesse paused, her brow creasing as she hesitated.

"That's not the guy you're looking for, if that's what you're wondering."

Jesse flinched so hard that she actually jumped a half-foot into the air. "For _cheese's sake_ , Aiden, what the heck?!" she exclaimed, turning back to the member of the Ocelots and rubbing her collarbone absentmindedly. "Don't _do_ that, you nearly gave me a heart attack."

Aiden's lips turned up at the corners slightly apologetically. "Sorry. But yeah, that's a lady. Not a guy with a beard. She runs the slime-ball booth."

"... oh." Jesse paused, before twisting to look at Aiden with an odd expression. "Why are you helping me again?"

Aiden shrugged. "If you're looking for Evie, I might as well help. It might speed up the process of finding the 'creepy guy with a beard' that you're looking for," he added, adding air quotes around the 'creepy guy with a beard'.

Jesse grinned, a teasing look coming over her face. She had _years_ of teasing and mocking and bullying to make up for. Embarrassing Aiden was the best way to do it. "Why, Aiden, if I didn't know better I'd say you have a crush on her," she teased.

Aiden's cheeks pinked a little bit, but he huffed and rolled his eyes at the comment. "Please. Evie's just like a little kid. If she's somehow involved with a 'creepy guy with a beard', as you keep describing him, we probably shouldn't let her keep being involved."

"Uh huh. Sure. Keeping telling yourself that."

"Do you want my help tracking Evie down or not?!"

* * *

 **A/N: Haha, Aiden kinda deserved that. xD**

 **But yeah... Evie's sneaking after Ivor, and Jesse has teamed up with Aiden (surprisingly) to go track her and Ivor down! Changes to the original MCSM! (I mean, obviously, if you add a character that actually gets along with Aiden and is also related to Jesse somehow, you're going to have to make changes to the interactions.)**

 **This shall be continued... in the next chapter. xD**

 **Don't really know if there's much else to say here, so see ya, so long, and g'bye!**

 **x.X. A.L. X.x**


	7. Similarities

Jesse was about to reply teasingly again, when suddenly a squeal rang out in the air. Immediately, her attention snapped away from Aiden as her eyes scanned the crowd. "Reuben?" she called out, hesitantly.

"Get your porkchops here!" a man at... what appeared to be a _butcher's booth_ called out. "Fresh from the bone!"

Okay, Jesse got that people sold _everything_ at Endercon, but who wanted _porkchops_ at a convention? ... then again, she might've just been biased since she hated pork.

Aiden arched his eyebrow at the butcher's booth himself. "Who sells porkchops at a _convention_?" he asked, under his breath.

Okay, so maybe Jesse _wasn't_ that biased.

Jesse automatically began to approach the butcher's booth, although she didn't realize it at first until she heard Aiden let out a surprised exclamation and started after her himself. "Hey, where are you-?"

The butcher lifted up a little pig onto the counter- _a little pig with a mark on the side._

There was only one pig that Jesse knew that had that mark.

"Nothing sticks to your ribs quite like a juicy porkchop!" the butcher continued, drawing out a _stone axe_ as Reuben- _Jesse's_ Reuben- let out a terrified squeal.

" _REUBEN!_ " Jesse yelled, breaking into a run for the stand. Behind her, she could hear Aiden letting out his own alarmed exclamation and running for the stand after her, but she didn't care, in this one moment she'd forgotten about Evie and Ivor and and Aiden Petra's deal and the only thing that mattered was that if she didn't get there in time _Reuben was going to die._

Reuben turned at the sound of Jesse's voice, letting out a terrified squeal. The butcher also turned, scowling at Jesse. "What's the big idea? I'm trying to run a business here!"

"That's _my pig!_ " Jesse protested, as Aiden managed to catch up to the girl.

"Oh _really_?" the butcher asked, in a voice that practically _screamed_ that he didn't believe her, "Well, I found him out in the woods, so I think that makes him _my_ pig."

"Oi, Jesse," Aiden hissed, trying to catch his breath a little from where he was standing a little behind her, "I thought you were-"

"Not the fattest pig I've seen," the butcher continued, ignoring Aiden, "but he should still cook up nicely."

Jesse fought back the anger rising in her chest. "Please?" she asked, a little weakly, "he's my friend."

The butcher shrugged- a motion that made the anger swell up in Jesse's chest even more angrily. "To me, he's inventory. I... might be amenable to some kind of trade." His tone implied that he was certain that she didn't have any item worth trading.

As if Reuben himself was an item.

The dam holding back Jesse's rising temper broke.

The scrape of stone on the sheathe, and the butcher stepped back in surprise- before getting dragged back forward as Jesse seized his collar and hauled him towards herself, noses an inch apart, teeth gritted in anger. She was vaguely aware that Reuben had let out an alarmed squeal and Aiden had taken a step back in surprise behind her. "Give. Me. Back. My. _Pig,_ " she snarled.

"Alright, _alright_ , you little maniac," the butcher growled, and Jesse released him. He stepped back, smoothing out his rumpled shirt, before smacking Reuben off of the counter over onto Jesse's side. "Take your pig."

" _Thank_ you," Jesse snapped, turning away from the butcher and stalking off deeper into Endercon, Aiden hustling to keep up with her and Reuben moving into step beside her. "C'mon, Reuben."

A moment of silence passed, before Aiden said, "Uhh... remind me not to mess with you anymore."

At that comment, Jesse glanced back at Aiden. The bully's face had turned oddly pale at the scene he'd just witnessed, and he looked a little nervous now that he looked at Jesse.

The black-haired girl sighed a little, trying to wrangle her temper back into check. "Yeah. I'll be sure to do that."

Reuben let out a little snort, giving Jesse a glare as he looked up at her. Jesse looked down at her pig, her temper cooling off dramatically as relief filled the places where anger had been. "I'm sorry, Reuben," she apologized to the little pink pig, "I should never have let you run off in the woods like that."

Reuben snorted again, but this time it seemed much more mild than before. Jesse looked up- just in time to spot what looked like Evie from the back, walking into the crowd.

Aiden had spotted her too. "Hey, isn't that...?" With that, he sped up, Jesse now being the one to have to chase after the guy- the benefit of having long legs- walking into the crowd faster. There was a momentary knot of people, where Jesse had to struggle to get past the crowd without shoving them aside- and when the three of them finally managed to get out of that section of crowd, Evie was nowhere to be seen again.

"Darn," Aiden muttered.

Jesse, scanning the crowd, saw Olivia standing and scrutinizing what seemed to be a chicken machine herself (really- what was the thing with her friends and chickens? Pigs were WAY better), and moved towards her. Upon spotting that Jesse was starting to move again, Aiden followed her quickly.

Walking up to Olivia, she tapped the girl on the shoulder, making Olivia immediately turn to look at her.

"You know that thing Evie and I had to do with Petra earlier?" Jesse asked, allowing Olivia to nod before continuing, "Long story short, we met up with this guy, he cheated me and Petra out of a deal, Evie ran off after him, and now, we're trying to track them down. You in?"

"Oh, I'm in, alright," and Olivia turned to face Jesse with a grin... before it collapsed into a frown. "Uh, by the way, you... are aware that Aiden's behind you, right?"

Jesse resisted the urge to check behind her. "Uh- yeah. He's helping me look for Evie too."

Olivia's eyebrow shot up at that as she processed that. "Huh... kay, then." Her gaze shifted over so she was staring right at Aiden, whose expression was a little annoyed. "I guess that works."

A moment later, Petra and Axel ran up to them, thankfully making the awkward moment a little less awkward. "Any sign of them?"

"I thought I saw Ivor earlier," Jesse said, shaking her head and glancing around in case he might be nearby, "but it was just a false alarm _wait there he is!_ " she blurted, eyes widening.

Indeed, Ivor was turning to look over his shoulder and panting slightly, before he turned back around and ran towards the keynote. "It looks like he's headed towards the Hall!"

A moment later, Evie's whereabouts were also cleared up- the girl emerged from a large bush and brushed some leaves out of her hair, before moving to hurry after Ivor as well.

"Hey, Evie!" Jesse shouted after her, but the girl was already out of earshot. "Darn... we've gotta follow them," she said, turning to face the others again.

Petra's brow furrowed as her gaze shifted down to something else. "Well, we're going to have to get past that usher to do it," she said, lifting her arm to point at said usher. Actually, it seemed to be the same guy that had been telling people to step aside earlier.

"Let's go," and Jesse hurried towards him, the others quickly falling into step behind her. Even Aiden only hesitated a couple seconds before following the girl quickly.

The usher looked at them quizzically as they all came to a halt in front of them. Jesse was painfully aware that this was probably the most mismatched group that had approached him all night- a short girl in overalls, a girl with a green beanie and goggles, a guy wearing a leather jacket, a really buff boy that was actually about the same size as the usher, and a redhead that looked as though she could probably punch your teeth out.

"So... uh... hey," Jesse said, sheepishly raising her hand and giving a little wave. How she wished that Evie had come along. She got the feeling that the other girl was even more awkward than _she_ was. Awkwardness loves company.

Petra was quick to intervene for Jesse. "What would it take... to get us inside tonight?" And she grinned casually, the others being quick to follow. Except for Aiden. He just crossed his arms with a slight scowl. It was a good thing he was standing in the back of the group.

The usher stared blankly at them, before chuckling. "Uhh... tickets." He then proceeded to start laughing really hard, as if he'd just told a really good joke.

A moment of brilliance hit Jesse, and she rubbed her head awkwardly- not that that was hard to do- and sheepishly smiled at him. "So, here's the thing- we _had_ tickets, but then we lost them."

The usher pulled a sympathetic face. "Oh man. That sucks. I _hate_ it when that happens."

"I know!" Jesse nodded in agreement, "I feel like _such_ an idiot."

The usher nodded back, before giving her a slightly sheepish shrug. "I'm sorry brah, but... no tickets, no show."

A moment later, a chicken- presumably from the chicken machine that Olivia had been looking at earlier- fluttered down to the ground in front of the usher, clucking. The usher proceeded to cringe away from it with such zeal that Jesse backed straight into the rest of the group and nearly knocked them down the steps. "Chiii _iiicken_!" he practically screamed. "Chicken- Chicken- Chicken!"

Jesse felt her face fall into an unimpressed sort of look.

The chicken walked away a moment later, making the usher glance up at it as if to make sure it had left. "It's gone," he reassured himself slightly shakily, "you're fine, you're a totally cool dude..."

Reluctantly, Jesse turned around and shepherded her friends and Aiden to an area a little ways away.

"We have to do something," Petra said immediately, glaring in the usher's direction.

Olivia frowned, glancing back at the usher. "Like what? The keynote has been sold out for _ages_."

"We _could_ bust right through," Axel suggested. "I just need a little wind-up room."

Aiden scoffed. "Oh yeah. Great idea, if you want to _wind up_ in jail."

Axel's head snapped around as he narrowed his eyes into a glare. "Nobody asked you. Why are you even here?" he asked, in a low, dangerous tone.

"I'm helping Jesse track down Evie," Aiden replied, turning and putting a hand on his hip as he narrowed his eyes at Axel. "The question is, why are _you_ here?"

Jesse decided to intervene before Aiden ended up in the hospital, because judging by how Axel's fists were starting to clench, that was the route they'd started down with this conversation. "Okay, um... I agree, maybe we _shouldn't_ try to bust right through," she interrupted swiftly, making both boys immediately look over at her.

A loud cluck interrupted Jesse's train of thought, and she glanced up- before stopping and staring up at the chicken machine Olivia had been scrutinizing earlier, a flurry of chickens visible through a glass pane. "What we need," she said slowly, the cogs in her brain beginning to turn, "is a _distraction_."

Petra turned to see what Jesse was looking at... before a slow, sly sort of grin came over her face. "A bunch of _chickens_ running around might be a distraction," she said slowly, as she picked up on Jesse's idea. One by one, everyone standing there turned to see what the two girls were looking at.

Jesse glanced over, the reaction she'd noticed from the usher earlier coming to mind as the usher tried to shoo away another chicken. "Shoo, shoo! Get out of here!" he exclaimed at it, before shrinking back as if the bird was going to bite him.

"The usher is _afraid_ of chickens," she said, quietly.

A smirk came over Aiden's face. "I think I'm going crazy, but... you're having the same idea I am, right Jesse?" he asked, glancing over at her.

Despite the fact that he was their rival, their _enemy_ , even, Jesse couldn't help but smirk back. "I think I am. What would you guys say..." And the smirk grew to beauty pageant proportions. "If I said I wanted to break this guy's chicken machine to cause the mother of all distractions?"

Aiden's smirk grew as well.

Really, nice Aiden made about as much sense as shy Petra. It just... didn't.

"You're going to have to break _that_ pane of glass to do it," Olivia said, reaching up to point at said pane of glass, eyes narrowing as she tried to calculate a method. "How're you going to reach it?"

"Let's look around," Petra said, glancing around quickly, "there has to be something we can do."

Quickly, everyone split up, fanning out to look around the general area. Nobody seemed eager to go too far for fear of getting lost in the crowd. Not even Aiden, and, well, Jesse knew how much Aiden disliked them.

A squishy sound alerted Jesse, and she looked up to see someone jumping up and down on a slime block, the slime block launching the guy into the air higher than he would've been able to jump otherwise. "Huh..." and Jesse reached up, thumbing the size of her mouth. "I bet I'll be able to reach that pane of glass with a slime block."

And she approached the booth. Reuben let out a little squeal and trotted after her as well, being careful to stick close to his owner.

The woman at the booth looked up at the sound of Jesse's approach, blinking pale blue eyes at her.

"Um... hi." Jesse rubbed the back of her head awkwardly. "One slime block, please."

"We don't sell slime blocks here," the woman replied, holding up a slime ball, "just slime balls. But we've got a limited supply today, and we're only giving out two per customer. You _could_ craft your own slime block if you had nine slime balls..."

"A round of slime balls for everyone, please," Axel suddenly interrupted, and Jesse twisted over her shoulder to see Axel, Olivia, and Petra approaching the booth with casual grins.

"Where's Aiden?" she asked out of the side of her mouth, as the woman shrugged- a sale was a sale- and doled out two slime balls to each person.

"I don't know."

"Who cares?"

Axel and Olivia glanced at one another in slight surprise at the two slightly conflicting answers they'd just given, taking their slime balls and walking back off into the crowd (after Jesse gave the woman a quick thank you).

"Well, without him, we've only got eight slime balls," Jesse replied, holding up her own two slime balls for emphasis, "and we need one more to make a slime _block_."

Petra frowned down at the slime in her hands. "Well, we need to find a way to get some more slime then- and quick."

"On it!" and Axel jogged off into the crowd again, Olivia being quick to follow. Petra went off in a different direction, and Jesse glanced around for some ideas.

She came up with nothing. At least, she'd come up with nothing until she spotted Aiden and Lukas standing near a post, talking to one another. And Lukas seemed to be holding a slime ball.

Inhaling deeply, Jesse walked towards the two Ocelots.

"- trying to come up with ideas on how to get into the keynote."

Jesse stopped in her tracks at the sound of Aiden's slightly hushed voice, the Ocelot member gesticulating as he spoke to Lukas.

"I figured, maybe if we could find a way to get some more slime-"

Jesse's eyes widened.

"We could build a slime block and bounce up to that pane of glass on the chicken machine-" Aiden turned to point at said glass, and stopped in his tracks at the sight of a wide-eyed Jesse.

Lukas turned to see what Aiden was staring at. "Oh, hey, Jesse," he said, sounding slightly surprised. "Nice to see you... again."

"Yeah. Uh, hey, could you... do me a favor?" Jesse asked, slightly weakly, reaching up and rubbing her head. Today was the weirdest day in her entire life. Nice Aiden, Lukas actually turned out to be a nice guy, and she'd met Evie.

She really didn't know how to feel about Evie, since she'd known the other girl for the span of an hour.

"Anything's possible," Lukas replied, turning to face Jesse and giving her a small smile to show he didn't mean her any harm.

"I, uh... I need slime balls."

Aiden's eyes widened a little at that. Lukas was silent for a moment, before raising his eyebrow at Jesse a little. "Are you guys... building a slime block so you can break the chicken machine so you can get into the keynote?" he asked, after that moment of silence.

Jesse paused, before giving a little nod. "We... already got eight slime balls. We... just needed one more," she said, slowly.

Lukas's eyebrow went up even more. "Huh." He glanced from Aiden to Jesse, before a strange smile came over his face. "You two... have pretty similar thought processes."

Jesse and Aiden automatically exchanged a glance at that.

Neither of them really knew what to think about that.

* * *

 **A/N: Honestly, Aiden and Jesse do have slightly similar thought processes, I feel like. Jesse has a lot of ambitions as a hero, and goals, and Aiden has those types of ambitions and goals... but goes about getting them in a different way.**

 **I dunno, that's just how I feel about the whole thing.**

 **LunarStarsMoons: (laughs) Oh, really? Glad you're interested!**

 **NoItsBecky: (laughs) Considering she barely knows her, probably not.**

 **x.X. A.L. X.x**


	8. So Very Relieved

After a moment of silence, in which Jesse and Aiden were glancing at each other, glancing away from each other, then glancing back at each other without seeming to know what to say, Lukas shrugged. "Well, whatever you guys are doing," and he extended the slime ball to Jesse, "count me in."

"Thanks, Lukas," and Jesse and Aiden both jumped a little in surprise as Petra came up to them, with Axel and Olivia in tow. Reuben was tagging along, too, letting out a cheerful little squeal at the sight of Jesse again. Petra's smile turned into a slight smirk as she glanced over at Jesse.

"Told ya he was useful," she added to the black-haired girl, in a slight whisper.

Axel scowled a little at Lukas. "Aw, man," he complained a little, "this guy isn't actually _cool,_ is he?"

Lukas surreptitiously stepped back a little, having to tilt his head back a good amount to make eye contact with the scowling, burly boy. His expression was a little defensive. Almost protectively, Aiden sidled over a step to Lukas, giving Axel a glare that could have set anything on fire. Axel didn't stop scowling— on the contrary, his expression became colder as he turned slightly to return Aiden's glare.

Jesse wished Evie was here; she felt that the girl could probably have defused the tension a little bit.

"Remains to be seen," Olivia replied coldly, narrowing her eyes at Lukas herself. Lukas turned his defensive expression to Olivia, looking even more guarded.

Deciding to ignore the situation and let Petra keep control of it, Jesse just moved towards a nearby crafting table. "It's craftin' time," she said, just to punctuate the now-awkward, tense silence that was permeating the area. Picking up a slime ball and placing it down on the table, Jesse could hear the conversation... sort of resuming as Lukas finally attempted to defuse the tension himself.

"So... you guys been building together long?" Lukas asked, a little awkwardly, as Jesse placed down the slime balls as quickly as possible. "You've got good chemistry."

"Are you jealous?" That was Axel.

Aiden scoffed. "Jealous? Of _you_?" he sneered, and ah. Ah. _There_ was the Aiden Jesse was used to. Really, Nice Aiden just _did not make sense_ to Jesse.

"I'm just saying," Lukas quickly intervened, presumably to avoid having Axel punch Aiden in the face, "I think it's cool that you have a team that works so well together."

"You guys are totally jealous."

Thankfully, before the conversation could go anywhere else, the nine slime balls that Jesse had placed down shivered together, merging together to form a glistening slime block. "Ta-da!" Jesse announced, interrupting any possible replies, "one slime block!" She grinned proudly at it for a moment, before her grin slowly fell a little as she realized exactly what she'd just made. "Gross..."

Well, hopefully this would help them find Evie and Ivor.

"I'll take that," Olivia said, picking up the slime block— actually, she had to yank a little, since the slime block remained resolutely stuck to the crafting table right up until she yanked it off, leaving a small trail of slime residue on said table— and moving to a spot between the crafting table and the chicken machine she'd been looking at earlier. She squinted up at the machine, then down at the ground, and then raised her arm and gestured slightly. "Riiiiight—" And she bent down, setting the slime block on the ground, "there."

Axel crossed his arms, shooting Aiden one last glare, before turning to face Jesse. "It's all you, Jesse."

Jesse nodded, before jerking her head at the tent above the crafting table. "Give me a boost."

Axel bent forward obediently at the request (well, it was a bit more like a demand, but Jesse was in a bit of a hurry right now), and Jesse scrambled up onto his back, grabbing ahold of the tent edge and working to pull herself up quickly.

"It's a good thing you're so light," Axel remarked suddenly, making Jesse slip and nearly fall right back off the tent in surprise. Which probably would've been painful.

"Sheesh, Axel, don't _do_ that!" she yelped, ignoring the fact that Aiden had almost _certainly_ just stifled a snort and scrabbling to get a better handhold now, "nearly scared the pants off me."

Pulling herself up onto the tent rooftop, Jesse checked over the edge and had a look at the slime block. Hopefully she wouldn't overshoot and miss the slime block— if she did that, she'd probably break her ankles, from how high up she was right now. Backing up three large steps, she took a deep breath and charged forward, launching herself off of the top of the tent just as she reached the edge.

" _Don't die don't die don't die_ ," she squeaked to herself, chanting it in a terrified sort of mantra as she fell towards the ground, the little bit of wind that was generated from the jump snatching at her hair and making it fly into the air—

Her feet slammed solidly into the slime block, and Jesse's knees automatically bent to absorb the little bit of shock the landing gave her, before Jesse felt her legs automatically launching her up again, sending her soaring in a neat arc at the glass pane. The momentary bit of fear she'd been experiencing fell away, replaced by exhilaration, and she let out a little "wheee!" as she drew her fist back—

And smashed it through the glass, breaking it to shards with no problem.

Chickens immediately exploded out of the machine at an actually frightening rate, spewing out of the machine and everywhere in a huge flood of startled clucking, white feathers, and a few startled yells from the other people in the convention. "My poultry! My precious poultry!" someone shouted, presumably the creator of the machine. Jesse landed with a slight 'oof' next to the machine, stumbling a little from the landing, and mentally apologized to him.

The usher ran forwards, shouting as he tried to attract attention among the floods of chickens and the general chaos that had started up in the area, "Keep your eyes closed! They'll peck out your eyes!"

He was abruptly bowled over by a chicken and was knocked onto his back, screaming in fear as they began to swarm over him, even hopping onto his face.

Jesse mentally apologized to him even more.

Petra, Olivia, Aiden, Lukas, and Axel ran towards Jesse, dodging several chickens as they did so. Reuben was hiding behind Axel slightly. Perhaps he figured that the burly boy provided more protection from the hordes of chickens. "Now's our chance!" Petra exclaimed, pointing at the now-unguarded keynote.

Without any further prompting, the entire group charged up the steps and towards the keynote. Jesse could hear a faint "Hey!" behind her, from the usher, but didn't look back as they dashed at full-speed towards the keynote.

* * *

Evie speed-walked into the keynote. Right now, it was fairly empty, but there was still a few people milling around and chatting.

Not Ivor, though. Although Evie hadn't been expecting him to just be standing around.

Scanning the room for Ivor, she was rewarded by a glimpse of the man darting through a door off to the side, leaving the door slightly ajar, as if he was in a hurry. Hustling over to the door, Evie set a hand on the door handle, and pulled a little to open it—

The door let out an explosive sort of creaking noise, making Evie freeze in her footsteps and stare through the crack for a hint of Ivor popping back over to look at it, or coming back up the steps to look at Evie. When five seconds passed without Ivor opening the door or the sound of footsteps on the steps, Evie carefully eased the door open and slipped through the crack, thanking whatever being might exist that she wasn't a very thickset person.

Carefully, Evie made her way down the steps with exaggerated slowness. Knowing her luck, if she went at more than this speed, she was just going to trip straight down the stairs and cause a ruckus. And also possibly develop a concussion.

She carefully poked her head out from behind the wall that blocked her sight from the rest of what seemed to be a basement, absentmindedly noticing a maze of bookshelves, dotted with glowing potion bottles, lamps, and spiderwebs that glinted in the dim light. The air smelled slightly musty and... Evie wrinkled her nose a little bit. Was that Nether Wart?

Evie could hear faint clinks and tinkles from glass somewhere in the basement, so she slipped down a few steps and tip-toed deeper into the room, darting behind the bookshelves and sidling along with exaggerated care, sticking close to the bookshelves to avoid being spotted. Hopefully. Maybe.

Maybe.

Suddenly, the clinking of glass stopped, replaced by a chest creaking open, then shut, then the sound of footsteps.

The wavy-haired girl froze perfectly still, back practically pressed into the bookshelves. Maybe, since it was dim in here and it wasn't like she was wearing anything particularly neon or eye-catching, and because she wasn't moving, just _maybe_ he wouldn't spot her...

Ivor passed by the bookshelf she was trying to merge with, with how hard she was pushing her back into it, without a second glance. Strolling quickly and almost purposefully towards a wall that was perpendicular to the one that was opposite Evie, he shoved aside a bookshelf with a great deal of ease— it had to be fake, Evie decided— and stepped into the hole in the wall he'd just revealed, before sliding the bookshelf back into place behind him, muttering darkly about "if anyone's sneaking up on me, I will certainly catch them by surprise".

She waited for another ten seconds for him to come back. Maybe he'd forgotten something.

When he didn't do that, Evie let out a loud and somewhat shaky sigh of relief, sagging against the bookshelf and allowing herself to slide to the floor, heart pounding away like some sort of jackhammer in her chest. Well, looks like that fictional book she'd read had actually had some pretty good tips. What was it again? She'd read it a long while ago. All she could remember was that one of the characters was named Halt.

Suddenly, she heard more footsteps, from where Evie had just followed Ivor into the basement, and Evie abruptly yanked her knees up to her chest and held her breath. Maybe Ivor had already finished doing his walkaround the area?

No, he'd literally left just ten or twenty seconds ago. No way he'd gotten back so quickly.

Well, but maybe...

"You're way more intense than I gave you credit for, Jesse."

Evie immediately perked up. That definitely didn't sound like Ivor. And he'd just been talking to Jesse. She wondered what Jesse had said for this guy (was it Lukas? It sounded like Lukas.) to call her 'way more intense than he gave her credit for'.

"Ready?"

Yes, that was DEFINITELY Jesse's voice.

"Ready."

And that was Petra!

Evie scrambled to her feet, not caring how much noise she was making, relief flooding through her so intensely that she actually forgot how to breathe for a moment. Thank Notch and Jeb and whoever else exists in this universe, they'd tracked her down!

Somehow. Even though she hadn't left any indication of where she'd gone.

Whoops. She'd probably have to apologize for that.

Evie burst out from behind a bookshelf, cutting off whatever Jesse had been about to say— something that started with an 's'. Or maybe a 'c', Evie didn't really know— and full-out _tackled_ the shorter girl, very nearly knocking Jesse over altogether. As it was, Jesse's back slammed into Aiden's stomach (Evie had to wonder why Aiden was here, but she was so relieved and really didn't care that much right now), Aiden staggered backwards into Olivia, Olivia tripped over her feet and banged her skull against Lukas's shoulder, Lukas stumbled into Petra, and Petra collapsed against Axel. Thankfully, Axel was quite hard to just bowl over, so the domino chain stopped there. Reuben let out a happy squeal and butted his head against Evie's leg.

"Evie!" Jesse exclaimed, voice clearly saturated with surprise, and a little bit of pain from Evie just abruptly tackling her.

"Notch, I'm _so_ relieved you're here!" Evie stepped back, clearing her throat and trying to pitch it lower so she didn't sound like she was attempting to do an impression of a chipmunk, unable to help a relieved grin from spreading over her face. She knew she was probably acting way too clingy and relieved but she _did not care_ , you will get stressed out when you're tracking a guy who's shady and weird.

"What were you doing?" Petra asked, in a tone that Evie couldn't _quite_ identify, but could tell was _not_ exactly good.

Evie immediately sobered up a little bit, rubbing the back of her head awkwardly and looking back to the floor. "Oh, uh... I chased after Ivor, but then I got sidetracked because of some people, and then I saw him again, so I chased after him, and then he came in here, and I came in here after him, and, uh, sorry I didn't let you know I was chasing—"

"Okay, but you're not like... _with_ Ivor, right?" Jesse interrupted, giving Evie a strange sort of look.

Evie blinked at Jesse and the question that, to her, had come seemingly out of the blue. "Wha...? No. No, I've never met Ivor before tonight. Why?"

Aiden cut Petra off before the redhead could say anything, clapping Evie on the back with a funny look on his own face. "Well, it's good to see you're okay," he said, giving her a wry sort of smile. Evie let a small smile come over her face as she looked around. There was Lukas, and Aiden, and Jesse and Petra and Olivia and Axel, and Reuben was butting his head up against her leg and rubbing her leg with his head and this was the first time Evie had felt this relieved about anything.

Jesse's face finally broke out in a relieved smile as well, and she moved in to give Evie a hug.

Evie almost pulled out of it in surprise. Really, the only reason she'd pretty much TACKLED Jesse earlier was because she'd just been so thrilled and relieved to not have been trapped in this creepy basement with Ivor all alone and because Jesse had found her. She hadn't been expecting Jesse to do the same on a more gentle scale. After all, they'd _just_ met that day. Evie didn't expect Jesse to _remember_ her past today, let alone _hug_ her.

Not that she didn't like the hug.

So, after a few seconds of making to get out of it, hesitating, and thinking it over again, Evie awkwardly reached up and put her arms around Jesse a little bit, giving the _lightest_ little squeeze of a hug.

Although really, she didn't get why Jesse looked so _relieved_.

* * *

 **A/N: Awww, Evie has reunited with the others! Looks like Petra might be a bit wary of Evie now, though, hmm. And Evie is still shy, even though she pretty much exploded in relief xD**

 **I'm really enjoying writing this story so far! I don't know if anybody's enjoying it, but I'm enjoying writing it! Especially since Evie's got nothing special about her, she's not a badass, and she's actually probably not very good at much of anything.**

 **Reviews and comments make me excited to write more! Mainly because it's funny to see people's reactions, lol xD**

 **Replies to reviews!**

 **LunarTheMooncake: Yep xD**

 **Princess of Muffins: Definitely a bit silly, haha. It just doesn't make sense to Jesse xD / Glad you like the story so far! Here is more :3**

 **x.X. A.L. X.x**


	9. A Recipe for Disaster

Finally, Olivia spoke up, probably so that Jesse would disentangle herself from the hug. "What _is_ all this?" she asked, voice echoing a bit in the large room.

"Looks like it used to be the basement," Jesse decided, separating herself from the hug quickly upon realizing she'd just been hugging Evie for, like, the past ten minutes, clearing her throat a little. "Weird place to have a hideout."

"I bet you _anything_ I'll find my Wither Skull here," Petra spoke, looking around the basement.

Aiden muttered something under his breath. Evie didn't have very good hearing, but she could've _sworn_ that he'd just said " _I'll take you up on that bet._ "

Axel began to meander deeper into the basement, walking with excitement past the shelves. "And if we find anything else cool to steal along the way," he leaned over to get a better look at a glowing redstone lamp, "so be it, right?"

Petra scowled at the burly boy, crossing her arms as she walked over towards him. "Axel- that's not what we're here to do."

"I _did_ say we should do whatever we have to..." Jesse mused. This was clearly _not_ the response Petra was hoping for, because she turned her scowl onto the black-haired girl behind her. Evie blinked at Jesse with a blank expression on her face.

So _that_ was what she'd said to warrant the 'you're more intense than I gave you credit for' from Lukas, then.

"And if the guy's not around," Axel picked up the sentence from where Jesse had trailed off, popping up from around a bookshelf with a huge grin on his face, "then what we _have_ to do is steal."

"I mean, it _does_ make sense," Aiden muttered, again under his breath. (Lukas elbowed him.)

"I don't want to stoop to his level," Petra insisted, crossing her arms and turning back to Axel, shaking her head insistently.

Axel was quick to have a response. "But isn't that the best way to get back at him?"

Evie sensed that the argument was going to go on for a while if someone didn't step in, and Jesse seemed as if she was wavering in both directions, so she spoke up. "I... don't think we should steal from this guy."

All eyes immediately switched to her, and her mouth went completely dry. Evie sometimes wished she could act like a regular human being and not one that had the most crippling shyness in the universe.

"It- it just- it just seems wrong," she finally stammered out. "Just- just because he stole from Petra doesn't give us the r-right to steal from him. If anything, Petra's the one who should-should decide if we steal stuff from this guy or not, since she's the one who- who got cheated out of her diamond. And- and if she says she doesn't want to, then I don't think- I don't think we should. Steal, I mean."

Jesse nodded, looking slightly sheepish. "Yeah, Evie's right. If Petra doesn't think we should steal from him, then we shouldn't. It _was_ her deal, after all."

"No one ever lets me have any fun," Axel complained, but Petra wasn't glancing back at Axel like the rest of them- she was just staring evenly at Evie. Her expression was completely unreadable as she regarded the smaller girl.

Evie blinked a couple times, uncertainly. What was she supposed to do? Why was Petra just staring at her? It was making her really uncomfortable.

"We let you hang out with us, don't we?" Jesse was quick to retort, before her small smile fell and she glanced around. "The faster we find what we're looking for, the faster we can get the _heck_ out of here."

"Oh- especially since I don't know when Ivor's going to be back!" Evie suddenly blurted.

Petra narrowed her eyes suspiciously at Evie again. "Why would you know when Ivor's going to be back? I thought you weren't with him?" she asked, voice tinged with suspicion.

Evie was too nervous to notice. "When I snuck in here earlier, he- he left through a passageway in the wall," she stammered nervously, "and I think he was saying something about checking to make sure nobody was sneaking up on him. I think it'll take him a while to get around the whole keynote and make sure, but-"

"Yeah, I agree with Evie," Jesse nodded, "we should get out of here as quick as we can. C'mon!"

With that, Evie found herself suddenly standing alone as everyone fanned out into the shelves. Even Aiden quickened his pace as he went to have a look among the bookshelves. Tentatively, Evie walked forward, moving quickly as well. Now that she wasn't so worried about being caught, speed was more important than stealth.

She came upon Petra rifling through a chest while Jesse came up behind her as well. After a moment, Petra pulled out a glittering golden sword, arching her eyebrow with a sort of impressed look. "Oh, hello," she said, sounding slightly impressed. She swung the sword, making Jesse leap back to avoid getting decapitated and smack right into Evie. Evie flailed her arms to stay upright, but ended up flat on her back on the floor.

She wished Ivor had some carpeting on the floor.

"Too heavy," Petra decided, shaking her head with a distasteful look on her face. "And too soft."

"But _super_ flashy," Jesse grinned at the gleaming blade.

Evie probably would've made a comment, except she was trying to discern whether or not falling on the floor the way she had had given her a bruise or not. The way it felt right now, it probably had. Just her luck.

"Yeah," Petra mumbled, "I don't think this guy does much fighting." She paused, before glancing over at Jesse. "Hey, you still have that one stone sword, right?"

"Yeah, I had to use it to threaten some jerkwad butcher to save Reuben's life," Jesse nodded, reaching up and rubbing the back of her head with a slightly sheepish expression on her face.

Petra's eyebrow shot up. "Jeez... oh, well, guess that was a pretty good cause." She paused, before leaning over to look at Evie, who was still sitting on the floor and rubbing her back. "Hey, Evie, you could use a weapon, right?"

"Huh?" Evie blinked up at Petra, before her eyes widened and she removed her hands from her back, waving them a bit in the air. "Oh- no, really. I'm not good at fighting at all, I'd probably just ending smacking myself with it-"

"Aw, c'mon, you can't be _that_ bad. I mean, you held off a bunch of monsters with a hoe," Petra pointed out, leaning down and pushing the sword into Evie's hands.

"She did?" Aiden was suddenly poking his head around a bookshelf with interest on his face. It was so quick that Evie honestly was wondering if he'd just been hiding behind the bookshelf and eavesdropping.

Evie attempted to pass it back, feeling her cheeks flushing bright red. Good thing it was dim in here. "Petra, the area was so filled with monsters that I literally _couldn't_ have missed, I was just flailing wildly with the hoe..."

"Not initially," Jesse mused, to Evie's slight dismay, as Petra reached down and shoved it back at Evie, "I mean, we weren't _completely_ surrounded initially, and you still hit them pretty good."

"Then I just got lucky. Really, I'm _really_ terrible at fighting, guys, I'm so clumsy..."

Aiden let out an annoyed sigh, making Evie turn to blink at him. "Look, I'm not an _expert_ or anything, but even if you're clumsy it might be good to have a backup weapon."

Jesse stared blankly at Aiden as if he'd grown a second head, but Petra jumped on his suggestion. "Exactly. What if your hoe breaks? You won't have anything to defend yourself with." The redhead then paused. "Uh, unless you have a second one."

"Well, I have a lucky iron helmet as well, but that's my only lucky iron hoe."

This time, all three of them stared blankly at Evie- really, what was _wrong_ with a lucky iron hoe? There was nothing wrong with one!- before Petra cleared her throat a bit. "Um... yeah. If that's your only weapon, and it breaks, then you should have an extra weapon in case you get attacked."

"But-"

"Just keep it, okay?" Petra reached out and patted Evie on the head, making Evie blink at her almost childishly. "Who knows? Maybe once we get out of here I can teach you or something."

"Oh." Evie blinked up at Petra from where she was still sitting on the floor, feeling oddly like a little kid from the way she was sitting with a gold sword in her lap. "I guess that would be okay."

Petra gave Evie a quick grin, before turning back to the chest.

Clambering to her feet, Evie slid the sword onto her back, before trotting after Jesse, who passed where Aiden was standing and emerged into a larger area, where Axel was peering around at the shelves. "Find anything, Axel?" Jesse asked cheerfully, reaching up and tilting her head.

"I wanna steal that," Axel pointed up at a potion on the shelf, "and that," and he pointed at a redstone lamp, before gesturing at a red mushroom. "I just wanna touch that."

"Decisions, decisions," Aiden muttered sarcastically. Axel scowled in his direction.

Evie had to wonder how two people whose names started with the same letter could be so antagonistic towards each other.

Actually, antagonistic started with 'A' too. Maybe that explained it, then.

"Ooh, take a look at that!" Jesse exclaimed, making Evie look up at Jesse. The black-haired girl was standing near a white block with a strange, glowing potion sitting on it. The bottle gleamed gold, and the liquid inside was a luminous purple that, combined with the gold light of the bottle, gave an eerily beautiful glow.

Evie hummed, trotting over and regarding it with an interested look. "Huh. What IS this?" she wondered, giving the bottle a childish little poke.

Axel came over as well, eyes practically glowing in the reflected light. "You're not gonna believe this," he said, staring at the potion as if hypnotized, "but I _swear_ I had a dream about this."

Actually, with the way Axel was staring at it, Evie could kind of see that happening.

"Okay, potion. I know this is a big step, but... I would be _honored_ if you'd come home with me."

Okay, well, now it was just a little weird.

"C'mon, Axel," Jesse said, putting her hands on her hips and tearing her own eyes away from the potion, "go make yourself useful and find that skull."

"I am..."

And then he scooped up the potion and slipped it into his pocket.

Evie stared at Axel, before lifting her finger and pointing at the spot where the potion had just been. "Um, unless that potion was made out of Wither Skull, which I don't think it was, I don't think that's doing what Jesse just asked you to do."

Aiden made a sound that sounded a _lot_ like he was snorting.

"Yeah, you... _literally_ just did the exact opposite of what I asked you to do," Jesse nodded, "besides, there's no way he's not going to notice that his fancy potion is missing."

"A good thief," Axel declared, looking around and spotting another purple potion, though the bottle wasn't gleaming gold and the potion wasn't glowing, "always covers his tracks." He seized it and popped it onto the block where the fancy potion had been. Actually, if you didn't know what was there before, or if you didn't stop and stare at it for a few seconds, you probably wouldn't have even noticed a difference. "Fixed it!"

"Oh, yeah," Aiden drawled sarcastically, making Axel shoot a glare over his shoulder at him and Lukas glance up from where he was examining a bookshelf carefully, "the perfect crime."

Evie decided to go talk to Lukas, since Jesse seemed to be heading in Olivia's direction, and walked over towards the blonde. She could vaguely hear Olivia and Jesse's conversation- something about Ivor not being a slouch when it came to enchanting- before it seemed like Jesse was starting to talk to Reuben. She could hear little piggy oinks, at least.

"Hey, Lukas," she spoke up, making the blonde turn to look at the girl.

"Oh, hey, Evie. Nice to officially meet you." And he turned to her a little more and gave her a friendly smile.

Evie gave a shy little wave. "Uh, hi. Lukas. Nice to meet you too. Uhh," she glanced around for a topic that would make her seem not like an idiot (she _did_ have an odd penchant of making herself seem like a complete imbecile), and her eyes landed on the bookshelves. "Uh, did you find anything so far?"

"Uhh..." Lukas glanced back at the shelves, frowning as he scanned the shelves, "you want an instruction manual on 'How to Build a Creepy Villain Lair Using Everyday Objects?'"

If Evie had been drinking any water, she would've spewed it out and started giggling. Just... just the _way he said that_ and the _title_. As it was, she did start giggling quite hard and had to clap her hands to her face to keep herself from bursting out in laughter altogether. Lukas glanced back at Evie, a surprised smile coming over his face at the sight of the girl nearly choking with giggles.

"Nice job, Lukas, I think you broke her," Aiden said, walking over and taking a look at Evie.

The way he said that just got Evie giggling even worse. If she started laughing, and Ivor started coming back at around the same time, that was going to be pretty bad.

Thankfully, there was a distraction about five seconds later- the sound of something mechanically sliding into the floor. Evie turned to see Olivia stepping back from the bookshelf she'd been scrutinizing earlier with a slightly startled expression, the bookshelf disappearing into the floor to reveal... a weird 'T-shape', with one block of something dark and weird with- were those _faces?!_ \- something that looked like _faces_ on three of the sides of the main block- a block with a strangely orangey-skin-toned outside, though it was patterned oddly, and a smaller white square with tiny, colorful glimmering lights flashing cheerfully. At the foot of the weird T was a large chest.

Jesse raised her eyebrow, looking slightly bewildered. "What... _is_ all this stuff?" she asked, everyone crowding around to get a better look.

"Soul Sand," Petra murmured, indicating the blocks with the weird faces, "it's everywhere in the Nether."

Jesse regarded the block in the middle, looking even more bewildered than before. "What about that block in the middle?" she asked, glancing at Evie as if she thought Evie might know. Of course, Evie didn't, so all she could do was shrug a bit.

"I've never _seen_ one of these before," Olivia mumbled, squinting at the machine and hesitantly reaching up to touch it, "I wonder if I just... take a closer look..."

Evie focused more on Olivia. She had an expression almost like the one Axel had had while staring at the potion, except magnified to a scary degree. If Axel had looked hypnotized before, Olivia looked like she was possessed.

A chill shot down her back as Olivia murmured in wonder, "Do you feel that? It's almost... pulsing-"

"Don't touch that!"

The statement came out more like a desperate shout than she'd intended, Evie realized a second late as her shouted words echoed back to her. Everyone was staring at her again. Jesse in particular had started back, having been almost right next to Evie.

Olivia turned back to look at Evie with an almost startled expression, as if she'd forgotten that they were there. "I- I was just curious."

"Curiosity killed the cat," Aiden suddenly spoke up, making Axel scowl at him even more darkly than before, although the way he said it didn't seem to be mocking- just as if a thought had occurred to him.

Evie shook her head, feeling her cheeks flush red again in embarrassment. That had been _much_ louder than she'd been intending. "The way you were looking at it... it was creepy." She shook her head, feeling that chill slowly fade away but a foreboding feeling still lingering. "Anything that can make someone stare at something like that isn't a good thing."

Jesse took an uneasy breath, gathering her thoughts and trying to appear less started. "Yeah. Don't forget what were here for. Find that skull," she said, regaining her composure. (Or, well, whatever composure Jesse did have.)

Olivia nodded and stepped back, as Jesse moved forward and lifted the lid to the chest. She'd barely taken a look inside when her eyes widened, and she leaned back, blinking in surprise. "Soo... good news, weird news."

Evie moved up the stairs to stand closer to the chest and looked over Jesse's shoulder into the chest- before her eyebrows shot up. Jesse continued, as the others began peeking into the chest themselves, "I found the skull, but..."

Petra scowled. "What the hell? Why'd I risk my neck for that skull if he's got two of them already? He was in such a hurry to get it, too." She paused, expression growing more uncertain. "There's gotta be something bigger going on here. Something we just don't see."

Maybe being nervous around this creepy block was doing it, or maybe it was because she didn't have Christina or Camry or Max breathing down her neck, or maybe it was just because she was with people that seemed to actually like her even though she wasn't a part of their groups, or, heck, maybe it was just because Evie read so many books in her spare time, but something suddenly clicked together in her head.

Soul Sand.

Three Wither Skulls.

Evie's eyes widened, things beginning to skitter into place.

Oh Notch.

"He's trying to build a Wither," she whispered.

* * *

 **A/N: Evie reads a loooooot, so she knows how to make a Wither, if not what all the ingredients look like. Seems that Petra's still a little suspicious, and Evie seems to be getting along with everyone! So far. That's pretty good...**

 **Well, I mean, minus the whole Wither thing.**

 **Responses to reviews! (Only on FFN though because I lost track of the ones I replied to on Quotev)**

 **Lunar: Yep!**

 **Princess of Muffins: He and Axel just do not get along xD / Yeah, Evie's fun to write. / (laughs) You're not the only one.**

 **NoItsBecky: Ah, I see. / Oh I'm not confident at all, I'm completely petrified about publishing this story xD but Evie is the only MCSM OC I know of so far that has legit nothing special about her, except she's uber clumsy and extremely shy and pacifistic.**

 **AquaK13: N'awww, glad you like her. / Haha, yeah! / Aww, you can get a hug. Evie likes hugging, although she's pretty shy. / (laughs) You're, like, the fifth person to say that.**

 **EnderKitty68: Is it because Aiden seems to have a crush on her? xD**

 **x.X. A.L. X.x**


	10. Headaches Suck

Lukas's head snapped up at that, and he stared at the pieces for a moment before whipping back to face Evie. He wasn't exactly a pale person or anything- fair-skinned, sure, but not pale- but at those words Evie could've _sworn_ that he turned pure white. "Oh, Notch," he whispered in reply, blue eyes widening in shock as he reached up to cover his mouth. "Oh, _Notch_ , you're right..."

Petra's eyes widened a little as she turned to face Evie, shaking her head a little. "But... a _Wither_... that's-"

"One of the _worst_ monsters there is," Aiden finished for her automatically, pale-green eyes looking a little paler in the faint light emanating from the weird block.

Jesse swallowed- loud enough that there was a small but audible _gulp_ sound as she did so. "We came down here," she spoke up, voice a little shaky, "to find Evie and the skull."

Evie blinked at the statement as Jesse finished, "well, we found them both."

Petra frowned uncertainly at the contents of the chest. "Maybe we should just- grab it, and get out of here," she said at last, eyes flickering through a myriad of emotions within seconds. "While we still can."

As if the universe was determined to thwart them, the quiet sound of shoes clicking on stone stairs met their ears. And it was growing louder and louder as the sound grew closer and closer.

"Uh- guys?" Lukas asked, voice rising into a dangerously frightened, high-pitched squeak.

"Scatter!" Petra hissed.

In perfect unison, the entire group scattered again, racing through the library for a hiding place. Reuben jumped up and nudged the lever to shut it again, while Jesse vaulted over a double-chest and squeezed herself in between it and a bookshelf, crouching down. Evie looked around in a panic, before spotting a tiny niche with an anvil in front of it.

Being rather glad that she wasn't much bigger than she was, she quickly dashed into the niche, diving into it and banging her elbow on the edge of the anvil along the way. She flinched at the feeling of a small bruise-cut forming on the area where she'd banged it, but bit her tongue to avoid making a pained sound. The last thing she needed to do was get everyone caught because she was clumsy.

" _Don't you recognize me?!_ "

Evie flinched at the sudden shout, fear shooting through her and numbing the pain throbbing through her right elbow, certain that Ivor had spotted one of them somehow.

Until he continued, "Or, wait... surprised _to see me?!_ " he burst out at the end, voice spiking dramatically in volume, before pausing and mumbling something. "No, that's not good... thought you were rid of me, didn't you?"

Ivor abruptly appeared on Evie's left, making the girl freeze completely still, holding her breath as he walked by. Thankfully, he didn't spot her- he seemed to be too busy muttering to himself at the moment. Across the way, a chest carefully creaked open, and a pair of clear blue eyes peeped out from under the lid, darting around fearfully.

" _That's_ better."

Evie didn't realize she'd been holding her breath the entire time until her lungs started screaming at her to breathe. She carefully exhaled, doing her best to let out the breath as quietly as possibly. Due to the fact that Ivor didn't spot her or hear her (apparently), she apparently did a good job of it.

His shoes kept clicking against the stone floor, the sound of his shoes on the floor echoing in the giant and, at the moment, _completely silent_ room.

And then they stopped, paused for a moment... before picking up again.

So far, apparently nobody had been spotted. Maybe he'd just paused to have a closer look at his fancy potion or something. Honestly, with how cramped this niche was, she couldn't see anything properly.

With the caution of someone walking into a nuclear radiation zone, Evie lifted herself into a kneeling position using the anvil, carefully leaning herself forward to get a better look at what was going on. Her elbow throbbed in complaint as she used it to keep herself upright, but she bit her tongue and kept her gaze fixated on Ivor, who was barely visible around the corner. _She_ got this injury because she was careless, _she_ had to deal with it.

Ivor was kneeling and rummaging through a double chest- not the same one that held the Wither Skulls, but a different one. Evie leaned forward a little more, narrowing her eyes and trying to get a better look at what he was looking at while boosting herself up a bit so that she could get a slightly better vantage point-

A potion bottle clattered to the floor nearby, startling Evie. Her hand, which had been bracing herself higher up, slipped off the far edge of the anvil, pitching Evie forward towards the floor.

Automatically flinching, Evie did her best to twist so that she landed on her back and not her face, but the heavy anvil that was in the way impeded her progress, and she only made it about halfway before the side of her head slammed into the floor with a loud _thud!_

And... possibly a slight crack as her skull made contact with the hard stone floor.

"Who's there?!" Ivor exclaimed, whipping around- to see Evie now lying on the floor for the most part, with her torso twisted somewhat awkwardly in relation to her legs and legs sort of balanced up in the air.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch, okay, that hurt, ouchy, okay," Evie muttered to herself almost incoherently, trying to take inventory of all the parts that hurt.

Her head? Yep, that felt like someone had just stuck a red-hot wire through the back of her skull, and she was seeing an entire cosmos swim before her eyes.

Jaw? Yep, that wasn't feeling too hot either. Though it didn't feel broken. Although, Evie wouldn't really know- she'd never broken her jaw before.

Legs? Yeah, since they were twisted so awkwardly in relation to her upper body.

Stomach? She might've skinned that area from slipping on the anvil and then crashing to the floor, but they didn't seem to hurt as much as her head.

Before she could gather herself and get herself back into a standing position, she felt a hand seize the front of her shirt and then haul her up to her feet, and she then found herself face to face with an absolutely _furious_ Ivor.

He had to lift her into the air a little to get on her eye level- though, she was SURE it was much less than he would have to do with Jesse if _she_ did this- and his dark blue eyes gleamed with a barely contained rage. "What are you _doing_ here?!" he seethed.

Evie wished he'd let her get used to her head feeling like it had just gotten a red-hot wire stabbed through it- now it felt like he'd dunked her head in a bucket of lava.

Then he paused, expression changing to one of slightly dawning horror, and his voice lowered to an almost wary tone. "What did you see?"

Before Evie's slightly pain-dulled mind would come up with a response- at this point, it would probably be something along the lines of "Please put me down"- Petra dashed out from behind a bookshelf, glaring at Ivor. "Leave her alone!" she barked, angrily.

"Yeah, back off, pal," Axel growled, coming out from his own hiding place- which seemed to be between a bookshelf and the wall near the wall of potions- and crossing his arms angrily.

As if on cue, the rest of them- Jesse, Aiden, Lukas, and Olivia- also stepped out of their hiding places. Olivia from behind a bookshelf, Lukas opened his chest and stepped out, Jesse popped out from her little spot between the large chest and a bookshelf, and Aiden stepped forward from a particularly shadowy area with bookshelves.

Evie appreciated them defending her, but she _really_ wished Ivor would put her down- her head felt like it was on fire right now.

" _You_ three?" Ivor growled, looking from Evie to Jesse to Petra.

"Yep. Us three," Evie finally managed, headache throbbing away in her temples. "Now can you _please_ put me down?" She tried to sound irritated with him, but she was pretty sure it failed dismally and came out as a restrained whimper.

Ivor glanced at Evie upon hearing this question, seemed to realize he was holding her up by her shirt an inch off the floor, and quickly released her. Evie's legs, which had not been prepared for the sudden release, collapsed beneath her and let her slide to the floor again. At least she didn't hit her head again. Small mercies.

"Did you _follow_ me here?" Ivor snarled, looking around at the entire group with barely disguised disgust.

"You thought you could just screw us over," Petra accused, eyes practically glowing with anger, "and just get away with it, didn't you?!"

"We're here," Jesse continued for Petra, green eyes narrowing at Ivor, "to prove you wrong."

Evie thought about trying to look intimidating, but knowing that she was about as intimidating as a pancake with whipped cream on it- great, now she wanted pancakes- and the fact that her head still felt like it was in a bucket of lava, she decided she'd look more pathetic than anything else and decided to focus on standing up without dying.

Olivia walked over from where she'd been behind Ivor to help Evie to her feet, extending a hand to the girl. Evie gave Olivia a weak smile as she allowed the other girl to pull her back to her feet, while Reuben and Axel moved to stand next to Jesse. Axel's arms were crossed.

"What are you going to do about it?" Ivor snapped, sounding as if he was out of patience, "I have what I want, and you have exactly what you earned."

Evie was pretty sure a Wither Skull was worth more than a single diamond anyway, so she was pretty skeptical about Ivor's claim that Petra had 'exactly what she earned', especially since he'd cheated her and given her lapis instead. But she was hoping there was still a violence-free solution, so even though her head was clearing up and feeling less like someone was poking it with knives that were on fire, she decided to keep her mouth shut.

"Now get out before I _put_ you out."

Jesse stalked towards him, green eyes brimming over with barely contained anger. "We _know_ what you're doing down here." She pointed in the direction of the concealed ingredients. "Soul sand, and three Wither Skulls? You're building a Wither!"

Ivor looked surprised at that for a moment. "... huh. Smarter than you look."

"Hey!" Axel barked, making Evie jump in surprise at the sight of the burly boy suddenly looking angrier than whenever he was near Aiden, and trust me, that was _pretty_ angry. "Nobody talks to my friends like that, and I mean _nobody_. Now shut your mouth- _or else_." His voice was brimming over with a sudden malice that Evie had not been expecting Axel to be able to have.

"Enough!" Ivor snapped back, impatiently, "you've wasted too much of my time already." He turned around and sprinted away from them, dashing into the maze of bookshelves. The entire group chased after him, Evie lagging behind at the back with Lukas as her head pounded away along with her feet on the floor. When they burst out of the shelves into the only clear area, Ivor was nowhere to be seen.

Evie frowned. Ivor was like a ninja.

I mean, she _liked_ ninjas, but she wished that he wasn't like one right now.

"Where'd he go?" Aiden asked, frowning and turning around in a little circle searchingly. Everyone turned around, heads turning from side to side as they searched for the man. Evie tried not to move her head too much- despite the agony in her head having turned into something more normal and much less painful, she still had a terrible headache and moving her head around too much was probably going to result in her doing something stupid. Or disgusting. For example, throwing up.

Yeah, she didn't like throwing up. Let's not go down that route.

But since she wasn't moving too much, she- ironically- was the one to spot a flash of movement. She jerked her head up- ignoring the way her head proceeded to complain- and let out an alarmed gasp of shock at the sight of him holding a pumpkin over his head, preparing to slam it down on top of a T-

 _A T made of iron blocks._

"Iron golem incoming!" she cried out the first thing that came to mind, making the rest of the group whip back around and gasp in shock themselves as Ivor leered down at them.

"If you won't leave of your own volition, I'll happily remove you myself!"

With that, the pumpkin slammed down on top of the T, and he disappeared from sight as the structure began to tremble and shiver together- before coming to stand in front of it as it slammed together into an iron golem, smoke pouring off of it and disappearing from sight as he smirked at the group of teenagers. "Show our friends the door, will you?"

The iron golem turned to face them, dumb eyes gleaming red before it lumbered towards them- and then swung its long arms in a precise, controlled way right at their heads in an attempt to hit them. With a shriek, everyone ducked just in the nick of time, although Evie was almost too slow and nearly got smacked in the face again. As it was, the nearest person to her- Aiden- had to yank her down before she got her head smacked off her shoulders.

Turning back to them, the golem raised its arms again-

Petra and Olivia darted past it for the staircase towards the door, and Jesse was quick to follow, very narrowly avoiding a hit from the iron golem. In fact, the force of its attempt caused her hair to fly up a little as she scooped Reuben up and barreled for the door, Aiden and Axel being quick to race after them too- before Axel skidded to a halt, as if he'd forgotten something.

Evie was confused as she dove out of the way of another hit, stomach telling her 'ow' in complaint. Why wasn't he running?! He was in a lot of danger right now, one good hit from this iron golem and you'd probably get knocked out immediately-

Turning back around, Axel barreled towards her, narrowly avoiding another powerful blow from the iron golem. Before Evie could process what was going on, Axel slung Evie over his shoulder like she was a sack of potatoes and ran back for the door again, Evie yelping in surprise as she was suddenly bouncing along on Axel's shoulder. "Uh, Axel-?!"

"We just came all the way down here to get you, we ain't leaving you behind!" Axel shouted in response as he charged up the staircase, the iron golem letting out a long bellow as they burst through the doors.

Evie blinked in surprise.

Oh.

That was nice of him.

They burst through the doors, dashing towards the back of the keynote- which had apparently already started, because the lights had darkened and people were cheering and clamoring- where there was a clear space, where Axel hurriedly set Evie back down. Aiden narrowed his eyes at Axel for a moment, but he didn't say anything- though that simply may have been because he was almost completely out of breath. Everyone was panting heavily, trying to catch their breaths as their shoulders rose and fell, gasping in air. Even Evie, who hadn't been running, was hyperventilating slightly for air. That... that had been the most stressful thing _ever._

"Everybody okay?" asked Jesse, glancing around at the group.

Evie glanced around at the group, all of them being rather hard to see in the dimness with the stage lights, not to mention that her headache wasn't helping matters. There was Jesse, her gold pin having gotten knocked out of position and hanging near the tip of her hair rather than keeping her hair out of her face, and Reuben, who was squealing and looking around; then there was Olivia, whose goggles were askew and whose dark skin was flushed with heat from the whole ordeal; and of course Axel was there with his hands on his knees as he caught his breath, and Aiden was panting slightly, dark brown hair looking a bit messy.

 _Wait_ \- and now Evie frowned. It might've just been Evie's massive headache talking, or maybe it was just the fact that the whole mess was making her hyperventilate, but...

Wasn't there someone missing?

Olivia suddenly looked up and started looking around as well, eyes widening as she realized the same thing Evie had, although the thought seemed to hit her quicker than it did Evie.

"Um... guys?"

Everyone looked over at Olivia almost quizzically, except for Evie, who was still trying to figure out who was missing.

The next two words made everyone feel as if an ice cube had just been dropped into their stomachs.

"Where's Lukas?"

* * *

 **A/N: Hoo boy. Lukas gets to be stuck in the basement next chapter.**

 **Yay. xD**

 **The MCSM soundtrack is really good... like, have you guys ever just sat down and listened to Soren's song in full, or to the Endercon soundtrack? It's sooo good.**

 **Replies to reviews!**

 **Smile4the-World: Oh... thank you! I'm glad you like the story so far, and I'm glad you like how things are going. / They might show up again, yeah, but I'm not going to say where or when. I'm still trying to figure it out. / Haha, yeah, someone should probably tell her. xD**

 **Princess of Muffins: Imagine Ninja Ivor training Ninja Aiden xD / Ahaha, I'm clumsy too. Tell that to the fact that I got hit with a kickball/basketball in the face or head about fifty times in sixth grade. XD / Thanks! And Merry late Christmas!**

 **LunarTheMooncake: Indeed. / Haha, glad you think so!**

 **AquaK13: I can't do animal art, but aww xD / (snorts) (laughs) Well, chickens aren't that bad. Birds are great, though. / I see, that's an interesting connection to make.**

 **EnderKitty68: (chuckles) / Aww, glad you think she's cute!**

 **Kingdom Hearts Slayer: Thank you!**

 **x.X. A.L. X.x**


	11. Whoops

The entire group looked around, but Lukas was nowhere to be seen. Aiden's eyes widened a little, his expression turning to one of slight panic. "I... I thought he was right behind me!"

"Well," Axel spoke up, frowning thoughtfully, "if he's not here, the only place he could be... is..." He trailed off, eyes widening as he realized what that meant, and the entire group turned in perfect tandem to stare at the still-open door, now practically shrouded in shadows.

"He's still down there," Jesse whispered, eyes wider than dinner plates.

Petra turned back to the group, anxiety dancing in her eyes. "Ivor's got an iron golem and all the ingredients to build a Wither down there. If he were to unleash it on this crowd of people..." she trailed off like Axel had, a shadow of fear momentarily crossing her face. "We've gotta act fast."

"It just so happens," Olivia jerked her head over her shoulder, "that the greatest warrior of all time is in the building. We should ask Gabriel for help. This is the smartest way to help Lukas."

Evie felt a little skeptical about that. (Or maybe that was just the throbbing in her skull talking.) What if Gabriel didn't believe them? Or what if Ivor got up here before Gabriel could do anything? Or what if... _agh_ , she might've gotten a concussion earlier.

"He's tough," Petra agreed, "I just hope he's tough enough to hold out a little bit longer."

"I'm going after Lukas-" Jesse cut herself off and stared at Aiden, who'd started speaking at the _exact same time_ she had. Same thing, too! Aiden, for his part, looked startled that he and Jesse were having the same thought process.

Olivia frowned a bit, deciding to ignore that fact for now. "If both of you go... there's a pretty high chance you'll get caught. Or worse, you'll both get stuck down there. I think only one of you should head down there."

"Then I'll go." Once again, Jesse and Aiden spoke in a perfect chorus, and the two of them glanced at one another again.

Evie had to hide a grin. The two of them were really quite similar, even if they themselves didn't seem to realize it.

Petra frowned. "Then again... it might be helpful to have backup. After all, there is an _iron golem_ down there."

"Just send Aiden and the rest of us can go get Gabriel," Axel said, almost dismissively.

"But the only reason Lukas is even in the basement right now is because we dragged him into it," Jesse argued back, which made both Aiden and Axel stare at her as if she'd grown a second head. "I can't- _we_ can't- just leave him down there."

"Hear hear!" Evie half-joked, as the throbbing in her head dulled to at least a small complaint. At least it didn't hurt as much as before. And the rest of her body wasn't in as much pain as it was in before.

"I still-" Aiden began, but Jesse proceeded to cut him off.

"Nope. No. I'll go get Lukas. He's stuck in the basement because we dragged you guys into this. You guys go get Gabriel." To further emphasize the point, she made a little shooing motion with her hands.

Aiden hesitated, before glancing uncertainly at Evie.

Jesse took the opportunity to bolster her point. "Plus! Plus Evie practically got a concussion earlier!"

Evie had to grin at how almost eager Jesse was- even though she knew where the shorter girl was going, it almost sounded like she was eager that Evie had practically gotten a concussion.

"You should keep an eye on her and make sure she doesn't get more hurt!" Jesse paused, before shooting Evie a slightly sheepish grin as she realized she'd just accidentally insulted the other girl. "Uh, sorry."

"No, no, it's fine. You have a point. I have a... slightly funny tendency of getting hurt." Speaking of getting hurt, her gashed elbow was starting to sting now, reminding her that _oh yeah_ \- that was a thing, too. "I could go walking down the street and I'd probably fall forward facefirst and break my nose."

Everyone winced at that.

Really, it wasn't _that_ bad... it had actually happened one time, now that Evie thought about it, but in her defense she hadn't been paying much attention to the road and had tripped on a rock and down a step. At least her nose had healed pretty quickly.

"Uh... yeah, let's make sure that doesn't happen," Aiden said at last, giving Jesse a nod. He paused, as if he wanted to say something, before lifting his hand and pointing at Jesse. "I swear, if the blonde child has one injury when he gets back here-"

Evie very nearly lost it at that point. _Blonde child_. Really, Aiden was such a softy that it was easy to forget that he'd been a complete jerk when they'd first met. It probably didn't help that her head was still a bit muddled up from its enthusiastic greeting with the stone floor in Ivor's basement. As it was, she basically had to bury her head in her hands to keep herself from bursting into hysterical giggles.

When her fit of giggles finally subsided, she let her hands drop to see Jesse and Reuben moving towards the door again, while the entire group began to weave their way through the crowd in an attempt to reach Gabriel, and she quickly moved to follow their example.

Unfortunately, the crowd was so tightly knit together, and everyone was so intent on trying to reach the stage as well, that it was nearly impossible to force their way through the crowd, and they merely ended right back where they'd started while Gabriel opened up the floor for questions.

"Okay- what now?" Axel huffed, looking frustrated. "I don't think that's going to work."

"No, really?" Petra whispered back, sounding slightly frustrated.

"So, um, you know, with the Ender Dragon," one of the audience members started babbling as the entire group lapsed into silence, trying to think of a proper method of getting through the tight-knit crowd, "and, uh, the fight, uh... what was Ellegaard's favorite food?"

There was a good, three second pause.

"Bread. Next question!"

Aiden coughed, clapping one hand over his mouth and stifling a loud snort. He fully expected that Evie would join in- either giggle or snicker- so he was a bit surprised when she didn't.

He suddenly froze. Wait, where _was_ Evie? She definitely wasn't next to him. He checked over his shoulder, just in case she was standing behind him. No luck there.

He straightened up, scanning the crowd and frowning. No, he didn't see even Evie's wavy hair... although, Evie was such an average height, and she looked so average from the back, that she could have been standing five feet in front of him and he probably wouldn't have blinked twice. "Uhh... does anyone happen to know where Evie is?"

There was a moment of silence from the rest of the group as they realized that no, Evie had gone missing. Again.

* * *

Actually, Evie wasn't missing- she was currently crawling between people's legs and moving determinedly towards the stage that way. Most of the people shifted aside as she squeezed through.

Once again, Evie was so incredibly grateful for the fact that she was not a particularly big person.

After a good minute, she finally reached a clear area that didn't seem to be blocked with more people, and scrambled to her feet, making some people murmur in surprise as she abruptly popped up from the ground- right in front of the stage.

 _I'm here! Yes!_ Evie grinned jubilantly to herself and almost did a little dance in place from how excited she was that her plan had worked, before deciding to celebrate later (and surely embarrass herself in the mirror, at home, by herself) and figure out how to get him to believe them... and head down to the basement.

Was that the plan? Evie really wasn't sure. She just got that they needed Gabriel to stop Ivor from doing... whatever he was doing with his Wither ingredients. She really couldn't figure out WHY he was making a Wither and unleashing it at Endercon.

Well, now was not really the time to be worrying about this, so she decided to focus on at least getting Gabriel to believe her about... everything that was happening. Man, did she really expect today to be an uneventful one this morning when she woke up?

Gabriel was still answering questions, so she decided to try to get his attention this way, and raised her hand like a schoolkid trying to answer a question.

Okay, so it was a bit childish to just raise her hand to ask a question, but she wasn't just going to shout out and interrupt the other people who were asking questions.

"... no, Magnus and I never... uh..." Gabriel coughed awkwardly, and now Evie was paying attention to what he was actually saying rather than her own inner pondering, she could see that his cheeks were darkening awkwardly. "We didn't... ah... next question!" he blurted at last, looking _incredibly_ awkward.

Evie had to wonder what the question had been.

"Um, you! With the..." Gabriel paused, eyes falling on Evie. There was a few seconds of pause. "... bleeding... elbow."

Evie blinked before checking her elbow. Yep- the arm she'd raised to get his attention was the one she'd bruised/gashed on the anvil in the basement. Quickly, she put her arm down again, giving a slightly awkward cough. "Oh. Uh," she paused, not sure exactly how to phrase this. She could hardly say, "There's a creepy guy in the basement of this building who's planning on doing bad stuff and we need to stop him."

"... pardon?"

... had she just said that aloud?

Evie felt her cheeks grow extremely hot at that. Well, if she was already at this point...

Gabriel arched his eyebrow at Evie, slightly skeptically. The way he was looking at her made it abundantly clear that he'd heard her clearly. And that he understood what she was saying.

But that he didn't believe her.

Well, not like she could blame him, it sounded quite absurd when she said it aloud. Especially when she was deliberately vague about the Wither and said 'bad stuff' instead.

She took a deep breath and said, trying to sound less nervous and frightened than she felt- I mean, every single person's eyes were fixated upon her right now, and there was, you know, the threat of having Ivor actually make his way up here and unleash the 'bad stuff' he was doing on every single person in this hall and probably beyond because Withers are seriously dangerous, so, no pressure, right?- and failing miserably at it, "Every person in this building is in a lot of danger right now."

Gabriel frowned at her as a nervous murmur spread through the crowd. "Now, hang on- if this is your idea of a joke, it isn't funny."

Evie stared at the warrior, slightly unimpressed. She had a bloody elbow, her head was throbbing, there was probably multiple bruises forming on her body, and her voice had sounded like an opera singer doing an impressive vibrato and falsetto at the same time, and yet he thought she was joking? Did she actually look like the type of person to pull that type of practical joke on someone?

Maybe she did. She wouldn't really know.

This is what she gets for not socializing with people.

"Dude, she's got a bleeding elbow and she practically has a concussion right now, do you seriously think she's trying to make a joke?!"

Evie almost jumped at the sound of Axel's voice booming out behind her. When had he gotten there? When she checked over her shoulder, his expression was slightly disgruntled at the idea.

"I'm really not joking," she said, a little more meekly.

" _I_ have a question."

Evie froze, shoulders tensing up at the sound of the unfortunately familiar voice. When had he gotten up here?!

Oh, wait. He'd probably used the secret passage. Never mind that question.

Turning to see where he was, she blinked at the sight of Jesse and Lukas quietly rejoining the group, standing just behind them. They must've gotten out fine, though.

"Excuse me, sir," Gabriel spoke, turning from Evie in the direction of the voice, "you'll have to wait your turn."

"Just tell me, first. Do you really believe _anyone_ can be great?"

Gabriel's eyes narrowed slightly, looking almost annoyed at the intrusion. "With enough hard work, yes."

"Was _that_ where I went wrong?!" Ivor spit as he emerged from the crowd, dark blue eyes practically blazing with anger, "I simply didn't _work_ hard enough?!"

Gabriel froze suddenly, looking startled. " _Ivor_?" he gasped, looking shocked at the sight of the man. "Is... is that really you?"

Evie's brow wrinkled- they knew each other?

A moment later, Gabriel got over his moment of shock, shooting a sharp glare at the man. "How _dare_ you interrupt like this!"

"That's the guy who attacked us-" Jesse made a circling motion to indicate the whole group, all of them staring from Ivor to Gabriel as she shouted to the warrior, "in the basement!"

Gabriel let out an almost venomous growl. "I wish I could say I was surprised," he spoke, almost bitterly.

"If it's surprises you want," Ivor remarked, voice practically dripping with sarcasm as he moved onto the stage, "you're in for a _treat._ Why don't you tell them the real story, _Gabriel?_ " He spit out the last word as if he'd just ingested a Potion of Poison.

The warrior narrowed his eyes at Ivor. "I see time has made you bitter."

Evie felt her heart pounding away in her chest. This confrontation was getting oddly heated; she wished they would stop. It was getting far more intense than she would've liked.

"And it's made _you_ ," Ivor snarled, as he stalked across the stage and got right up in Gabriel's face, "an even _bigger_ fool."

Evie suddenly was stricken by the fact that Ivor was a few inches shorter than Gabriel, he was much thinner and less strong, and his face was pale to the point where it was actually unhealthy, and yet... yet the way he was glaring at Gabriel as if he'd like to _kill_ the man made him seem as if he was on a level playing field with the warrior.

"Now, these people were promised greatness," Ivor sneered, putting his arm around Gabriel's shoulders and glaring out at the crowd. Gabriel almost flinched away from Ivor's touch as if he was a slime. "And I'm ready to deliver."

Dropping his arm from Gabriel's shoulder, Ivor stalked towards the back of the stage, where a lever was sitting on a block. "I'm sorry this is how they have to learn the truth."

"Gabriel, you have to stop him!" Jesse almost screamed at the warrior in her panic, even as Evie was considering the note of actual apology that was hiding at the back of the snarl he'd just delivered- maybe it was just her imagination, or her slight concussion playing tricks on her- but it was too late. The switch made a dull thudding sound, and the ingredients for the Wither slowly rose out of the floor, two of the Wither Skulls already placed at the ends.

"But nothing built can last forever, Gabriel."

"Ivor, _no!_ "

The world began to move slowly. Fragmented moments assaulting Evie as time seemed to slow to a crawl. Gabriel moving towards the other man to stop him. Ivor reaching into his pocket to pull out a Wither Skull- _Petra's_ skull. A pale hand reaching up, the Wither Skull in his hand as he moved to place it on the center, on top of the weird block. Gabriel's arm reaching out to yank Ivor back.

The inch of space between the skull and the ingredients closing as the skull made contact with the ingredients for the Wither.

And then there was a blast that sent the front rows of the audience reeling back, knocking Gabriel and Ivor off the stage and onto the ground, ripping through the slow motion that had enveloped the world in those last few moments.

Despite the fear that was currently racing through Evie's blood, one thought immediately swam to the surface.

 _Well, I think we are going to die now._

* * *

 **A/N: Evie is honestly not wrong, that is a very accurate way of thinking at this moment xD**

 **Two comments last time! NEW RECORD! xD**

 **LunarTheMooncake: lUkAs hAs bEeN hElPeD xD**

 **NoItsBecky: Hahahaha, I'm glad you noticed x3**

 **x.X. A.L. X.x**


	12. Concussions Do Not Help Life

"Creature- attack!" Ivor ordered, dark blue eyes glinting strangely.

The screams of Evie's fellow keynote attendees immediately began, people fleeing for the doors and shoving their way through the crowd. Evie twisted to see Jesse leaping sideways to avoid being blasted into the floor by a flaming skull, spit out by the Wither with the strange block nestled in its ribs-

The skull hit the floor and promptly detonated, nearly knocking Evie off her feet altogether as she staggered to catch her balance- which actually saved her life, because the second she staggered off-balance, a skull blasted through the area where her head had just been, close enough for her to smell the foul, sickly sweet, burnt scent it was giving off.

The skull's impact with the floor sent out a forceful shockwave that promptly bowled Evie forward, prompting a small "Ouch" when her chin collided with the floor, inches from where Gabriel was standing and now twisting to see where the soft sound had come from.

The floor was starting to tremble- and suddenly, two blocks were sucked up from the floor, soaring at the Wither and hitting it. Except... except the Wither seemed to absorb it. The wall began do the same, and a poster, and soon all sorts of objects and bits of the floor were being sucked towards the Wither, which seemed to be absorbing the blocks and creating... some sort of extra skin around itself.

Evie's brow furrowed.

Normal Withers couldn't do that.

"Everyone, stay calm!" Gabriel shouted, drawing his diamond sword, "this foul beast is no match for me!"

Ivor pointed at Gabriel, who was only a few paces away. "Creature: attack!" he repeated his order.

The strange block in the Wither's ribs seemed to glow, the Wither slowly turning to face Gabriel. With a shout, Gabriel leaped into the air and slammed the sword into the block.

It wasn't even dented. In fact, a small shockwave repelled Gabriel and slammed him onto his back, sword skittering out of reach and into one of the craters the Wither had just created. Gabriel let out a grunt and shook his head, glancing at Ivor with fear glinting in his eyes. "What have you done...?"

"Gabriel-" Jesse started towards the warrior as he pushed himself to his feet.

"No!" Gabriel whirled around to face Jesse, eyes widening. "Stay away! It's after me, not you!"

The Wither suddenly flew at them, and everyone ducked in the nick of time- Aiden ducked forward with such force he almost knocked himself over- as it soared over their heads, everything that wasn't human spiralling towards the creature in a maelstrom of objects.

Evie looked up to see Ivor with a strange smile on his face, still only a few feet away from the group.

"Ivor!" she practically screamed at him, and he blinked before turning to look at her, looking almost startled at being directly addressed. "I don't know _what_ you're thinking right now but could you please _get rid of this damn thing?!_ " Her voice rose into a near-hysterical shriek at the end, making the others in the group blink at her.

"I didn't think she could even curse," Aiden muttered to Axel, who happened to be the nearest person to him.

"Same, dude," Axel whispered back.

Ivor blinked at Evie, looking a bit like a deer in headlights, before clearing his throat and shooting Gabriel an almost taunting look, his confused expression replaced with that strange smile. "Look at him- the mighty Gabriel!" He spit out the last two words with such sarcasm that you could practically hear it dripping off his voice. "Looks like true greatness is out of his reach. He may not be able to defeat this creature, but I can!"

Ivor turned to face the Wither. "Creature," he said aloud, raising his voice to be heard over the hullabaloo, "retreat."

Even though Evie's face was practically white right now and her heart was fluttering at a million miles an hour and her head was starting to scream with pain from all the sharp movements and the explosions and the screaming, she couldn't help but snap her head around to see what the Wither did-

She swallowed a scream, her breath catching in her lungs. The Wither's center head had turned into something straight out of a nightmare, jet black with a single indigo eye. The mouth had morphed into an animalistic gash in the head, with carnivorous teeth glinting in the black skull and the mouth stretching so far that you could see every one of those rotted teeth.

The Wither didn't do anything except turn to face him directly, staring at Ivor.

Ivor cleared his throat. "Creature, retreat," he repeated, putting more emphasis on his words and enunciating them clearly. Still the Wither did nothing, instead opting to hover closer and closer towards Ivor. "Retreat, I said!" the man snapped, losing patience and his composure, "Retreat!"

Aiden let out an incoherent whimper behind Evie. Jesse shook her head at Ivor, looking disbelieving. "Ivor- _what_ in the world are you _doing?!_ " she yelled at him, voice cracking at the end.

"Please, please tell me you have a backup plan," Evie uttered weakly.

Ivor's dark blue eyes lit up at those words. "Actually- indeed I do! No need to be alarmed, my friends-"

 _We're not friends_ was the rather sardonic answer that sprang to Evie's mind, and if the situation had been different she might've actually said it. Well, except that it was rude, and so she probably wouldn't have actually said it because... you know. It was rude.

Evie didn't like being rude.

"I have an elixir that will destroy this creature."

Maybe it was Evie's concussion, but it took a full five seconds (and if you don't think that's a long time, try sitting there in silence for five seconds- it's a _long_ time for a reaction to take place) for her brain to dissect what that meant. Jesse's face actually paled as she realized what that meant. "The potion..." Ivor was pulling the fake potion out of his pocket. "Is that-"

"An elix- _oh_." Evie's headache was practically pounding through her head, but she could still feel the moment when her heart actually skipped a beat as she realized what that meant. "Shoot."

Perhaps not the most appropriate reaction, but Evie had a concussion right now.

Ivor poised himself to throw the bottle, and Axel's eyes widened as he reached the same realization that Evie and Jesse had just had. "Uh-oh."

The bottle shattered against the Command Block, bursting into a cloud of purple smoke. Of course, nothing happened. Ivor's eyes widened, shoulders tensing. "W-what...? Impossible! It should've worked!" he whispered. "I took such care!"

"The potion- Axel, you've gotta throw the real potion!" Olivia shouted, head snapping around so that she was staring at her burly friend with wide eyes.

Axel frowned at that. "But... finders keepers!"

" _Now is not the time for finders keepers, Axel!_ " Jesse almost bellowed at him, eyes the size of dinner plates as she flailed her arms in a hot panic. Evie would've had the same reaction, but everything felt so much slower than she would've liked with this _Notch-darned concussion._

"You thieves!" Ivor exclaimed from where he was standing, having apparently heard this exchange, "you're ruining everything!"

Evie would probably have come up with a witty reply or a sarcastic one if she was less socially awkward, but she was socially awkward so she wouldn't be able to come up with one anyway, and even if she could've her concussion was currently throbbing so painfully in her head that she was debating smashing her head against the wall and knocking herself out. At least she wouldn't be feeling this annoying, dull-then-sharp-then-dull-again pain, then.

"Throw the stupid potion, you idiot, do you _want_ us to die?!" Aiden almost yelled at Axel, voice rising and actually cracking from how loudly he was shouting. Axel was too frightened to argue with him, for once– he yanked the potion out of his pocket, nearly fumbling it and dropping it–

Jesse swiped out, snatching it out of the air before it could hit the ground, quickly moving into a throwing position and aiming right at the Wither–

A violent tremor rumbled through the earth, knocking Jesse off-balance and making her stagger uncomfortably, the potion slipping out of her hands and flying right into Evie's. The wavy-haired girl stared dumbly at the potion for a moment, her reactions having to struggle through the molasses known as 'pain' that her head was currently experiencing.

"What are you _waiting for?!_ Throw it!" Petra was practically screaming at Evie, and the wavy-haired girl finally got what she was supposed to do, and she raised the potion to aim, but her vision was starting to split into twos and threes and the ground seemed to be tilting beneath her feet and she might just throw up–

 _Suck it up and deal with it. It's your own fault you were so clumsy_ , she scolded herself, and gave her head a little shake. That made something rattle around in her head and possibly worsened the concussion, but she couldn't worry about that right now, and drawing her arm back, she threw.

Even before the potion had fully left her hand, she could tell it was actually a decent throw for once– usually she couldn't throw worth beans. But it looked like she'd at least hit the target this time–

The black 'skin' the Wither had been creating snaked over the Command Block, shielding it from harm, and the potion shattered harmlessly against it. Ivor clearly blanched. "It's... protecting itself," he almost whispered, "without the Command Block exposed, the potion is useless! It... wasn't supposed to happen like this..."

Evie's brain wasn't currently functioning at its peak of performance, but even through that she had enough control of herself to stare at Ivor in disbelief. How _was_ it supposed to happen, then?!

Ivor took one step backwards. Then another.

And then he ran.

"Ivor! You _coward_ , come back here!" Gabriel roared after the shorter man, but before anything could be done, a purple beam of light flickered into being and landed on Gabriel.

Evie watched, slightly mesmerized, as his feet came off of the ground, defying gravity, the warrior letting out an alarmed yell as he tried to struggle back down. It was oddly hypnotic, in a way... and it definitely didn't help that she was currently experiencing the worst concussion she'd ever had.

Olivia darted forwards and seized Gabriel's leg, anchoring him to earth. She looked over her shoulder, her own weight not quite enough to tug Gabriel back to safety. "Jesse, help me!" she screamed.

The shorter girl lunged forward and grabbed Gabriel's other leg, trying to pull him back down to earth, but the two girls were fighting a losing battle. For one, Jesse was way too small and not that heavy anyways; for another, Olivia didn't exactly look like she had enough upper body strength to yank a full-grown man down. The three of them started rising into the air–

"NOPE!" And suddenly, Evie was throwing her arms around Jesse's waist and anchoring the shorter girl to the ground again. "NO. NUH-UH. NEGATORY. NO. NOT HAPPENING!" Her voice was abnormally loud, and judging by the surprised look Jesse shot her as she looked down, she hadn't been expecting such a weird outburst from Evie.

Truthfully, if Evie hadn't been concussed, she probably wouldn't have yelled at all, but right now she wasn't really thinking straight. She really needed a healing potion before this concussion turned into something serious.

Well, more serious than it already was, anyways.

A moment passed, and then either the Wither gave or Evie somehow made a difference– probably the first option, Evie was worthless at anything involving physical exertion– and the four of them fell to the floor, Gabriel safely out of that weird beam. Jesse reached out to help him, and Evie would've done the same if not for this _horrible_ concussion. She swore it was steadily getting worse with each passing minute. Could concussions do that?

"Thank you... Ivor was right about one thing. I can't defeat that thing. Not on my own." As if on cue, all of them looked at the Wither, which, in the span of a few minutes since Evie had taken her eyes off of it, had developed a second nightmare-head and grown to the size of Evie's cave. "Everyone's running away..." He turned to stare at them, desperation gleaming in his expression. "Except for you." He paused, as if considering an idea, before his gaze hardened. "Will you help me? I must get to the temple. But what happens next... I can't do alone."

"Of course!" Jesse exclaimed. Axel squared his shoulders, Olivia gave a hasty nod, Petra gave a single incline of her head, Lukas managed a weak bobbing of the head that resembled a nod, Aiden made a sound that sounded like a mix between a 'yes' and a strangled cat, and Evie... well, Evie was _pretty_ sure she'd just nodded. Either that or the entire world had just bobbed up and down.

"Follow me!" And Gabriel started running outside of the keynote. Evie stared after him a moment, aware that the others were running after him and yet unable to convince her feet to move–

A hand seized her wrist and started towing her along, belonging to Aiden. "Are you _trying_ to get yourself killed?!" he demanded over the roar of chaos that was permeating the air. Judging by the slight breeze on her face, he'd just dragged her outside.

"If I was trying to get myself killed, I'm so darn clumsy that I would've even failed at that," Evie weakly joked, repressing the urge to throw up. _Would you suck it up already, Evangeline Butler, it's your own fault that you were so darn clumsy that you gave yourself a concussion._

Aiden made an annoyed sound. "Well, try not to be clumsy now, because if you do, you're most likely gonna die–"

As if the universe was intent on ticking him off, right at that moment a violent smashing sound exploded through the air, the earth giving a little jolt, and Evie found herself tripping forward again, before jolting to a halt and feeling her arm complain as it was nearly yanked out of its socket. Aiden pulled her back to her feet again and muttered something under his breath.

"Hm?"

He muttered again before resuming a sprint, continuing to tow Evie along.

She felt kind of bad– after all, he'd somehow found himself in charge of the clumsiest person to ever exist, and with a nasty concussion to boot at the moment, and she was pretty sure she was slowing him down by just staggering along as best as she could. "Sorry."

He didn't slow down or do anything differently, but he seemed to be confused. Maybe it was just her concussion talking.

"I'm slowing you down..."

"Not that much, we're making progress." Aiden glanced over his shoulder at her and gave her a small smile– before his eyes travelled to something above her head and widened, face paling. He immediately snapped back to face forward and started running even faster, Evie now basically being pulled along at the fastest speed she'd ever gone at even as he plunged into a crowd of screaming, fleeing people. She vaguely wondered where everyone else had gone. Also, she wondered what Aiden had seen to warrant his reaction.

"Can I look?"

"No. Keep running."

"Okay. Sorry."

Her foot suddenly hit empty air, and she tumbled forward a few steps. Thankfully, the descent wasn't too big of a distance, and she managed to land back on her feet once she got there, staggering and almost landing flat on her face. Her natural clumsiness and her concussion wasn't doing anything to keep her on her feet.

"Sorry," she repeated as Aiden had to yank her back to her feet. She thought she saw Lukas's head and a red head with a blue bandana on it nearby, but she was so dizzy and confused and the chaos was currently so violent that she could barely keep her own thoughts straight.

"Stop apologizing!"

"Sorry..."

Aiden muttered something again.

* * *

 **A/N: GET THE HECK OUTTA THERE KIDS. AND ALSO PLEASE GET EVIE A HEALING POTION BEFORE HER CONCUSSION CAUSES HER BRAIN DAMAGE. THAT WOULD BE BAD.**

 **That's all I have to say xD**

 **I have to laugh at some of the theories on my other story The Fairytale Curse– that story has become more of an investment to me than any other story I currently have, except for maybe Just a Game.**

 **Responses to reviews!**

 **LunarTheMooncake: (giggles)**

 **AquaK13: You really should, she could go walking down the street and she'd injure herself. / Hehehe xD / (snorts) Haha, maybe.**

 **Princess of Muffins: (giggles) / Awww, thanks. She can also be a huge dork, as evidenced by just now when she exploded into her series of 'no's this chapter. xD / Hehehe. / You can make up your own ship name if you'd like xD**

 **EnderKitty68: Either Aiden will tow her the entire way there, or (if it comes to it) probably someone will be like "NOPE WE WENT TO ALL THAT TROUBLE TO GET YOU YOU AIN'T DYING NOW" and will just carry her there. / I'm sure that if there wasn't a 3-headed nightmare demon in the sky, she would happily do so. xD**

 **NoItsBecky: (laughs) They're all dorks.**

 **IntrovertAnon: Aww! 0-0 I'm glad you like it so much! And I'm glad that people seem to like Evie so far– thought most people would call her a Mary Sue. xD / And thank you for the lovely compliment!**

 **x.X. A.L. X.x**


	13. Break a Leg! You Crushed It!

Everything was chaos.

Also, extremely loud. And right now the loud noises were echoing around Evie's head, bouncing off of the sides and staying in her head for longer than necessary, making the concussion feel even worse; and believe me, _that_ was an accomplishment.

She tripped again, and this time she knocked right into Aiden, making him stagger as he nearly tripped headfirst down a flight of stairs.

"Sorry..."

Aiden muttered something again and kept towing her along. At this rate, Evie was starting to wish she was a mannequin. That would probably be _easier_ to drag along than someone who was actively slowing them down.

"Where're we going?" Evie asked, but her already-quiet voice was so soft that she was pretty sure Aiden hadn't heard her.

Also, she couldn't tell if she'd actually said it, what with the concussion she was currently experiencing.

Aiden came to a stop a second later, but then there was a cracking sound ( _what was that sound?_ ) and more screams. She felt his hand around her wrist disappear. Had he disappeared into thin air or something? No, that wouldn't make any sense...

"Evie, what the hell are you-" And then an alarmed shout.

Was that Petra? It sounded like Petra. Why was she so alarmed right now? Evie forced her eyes to focus, an effort that made her head start yelling 'ow' repeatedly because _darn it all it hurt_.

Yep, there was Petra. Had she gotten taller? No, she was floating... surrounded by purple...

Wait.

" _OH SHOOT_ -" Evie flung herself forward and wrapped her arms around Petra's waist, anchoring the taller girl to the ground and scrambling to escape the tractor beam as her brain finally seemed to catch up with her body, but she wanted to throw up and her head was pounding like a bass drum and she couldn't feel the ground anymore ( _where did it go?_ ) and her legs were kicking furiously-

"Evie, stop kicking!"

Jesse. That was Jesse.

Where was Jesse?

Evie looked around, her legs slowing in their furious search for ground, and she felt a hand snag her ankle, and then a gradual tug that began to form as the tractor beam continued trying to suck them up and Jesse (was that Jesse? She couldn't tell) anchoring them to the ground.

Petra let out a gasp. "Guys-!"

"I can't-" Jesse sounded alarmed now, more than before. What was wrong? Something was wrong. But Evie's eyes had landed on a patch of grass growing in the middle of the stone path, and for some reason it had become utterly fascinating. "- can't hold on-!"

There was a splintering, cracking sound, the sound of something breaking, but it sounded a thousand miles away, it sounded so far away, _why was it far away_ , had someone broken something over there?

Now the tug was gone-

And now it was back-

Evie let out a weak grunt as she hit the ground again, the impact jarring something loose within her head and making it spin even worse. Was the ground supposed to tilt like that?

"-ie? Evie?!"

Why was Jesse sounding so worried?

"'M fine," Evie muttered, trying to get up and unable to find the ground with her hands. Was she on her back? She reached backwards with her hands. No, she still couldn't feel anything. Was she still floating?

A pair of hands grabbed her by the shoulder and yanked her upright, making Evie repress a low groan of pain as the entire earth started tilting badly, and now she was looking into a pair of hard eyes- Petra, there was a little flash of red hair. "Pay attention!" she barked at Evie, like a military general.

"I'm trying," Evie tried to say. At least, she thought she tried to say it. Maybe she was imagining it. She couldn't tell.

The anger in Petra's eyes melted to concern. "Evie? Hey, Evie." She gave Evie a little shake, making something rattle around in Evie's head. Had her brain come loose and started rattling around in there? Either way, her head started spinning like a carousel out of control. "You okay?"

Evie wanted to say she was okay- in fact, she was perfectly fine, she was doing absolutely wonderfully, if you ignore the fact that her head was spinning and throbbing and making her feel like she was floating away, but now she could see torchlight glinting off of Petra's hair and she couldn't stop staring at it.

"What's wrong with Evie?" Jesse sounded worried, her voice a tight squeak as she stared at Evie. Evie lifted her head to look at Jesse more clearly.

It took so much more effort than it should, so after a couple tries Evie just went back to staring at Petra's hair.

"I-I don't know, I don't know what's up with her, uh-" Petra's voice was gaining in pitch and intensity.

* * *

Petra looked up at Gabriel, feeling a little spike of anxiety in her because why was Evie just staring at her blankly, why did Evie look like she was about to pass out, _what was wrong with the girl?_

Gabriel was frowning at Evie as well. "Is she usually like this?"

"No- well- I don't know," Petra said helplessly, letting go of Evie- the girl swayed slightly in place the moment Petra let go, but otherwise stayed upright- and wringing her hands slightly. "We met her today... but she's been pretty down-to-earth today, so..."

Aiden was the first to come back over, Lukas stumbling slightly as he caught up to his friend with Axel, Olivia, and Reuben also returning, having noticed that the others might've been in trouble.

"I think something's wrong with Evie," Petra said, in response to the quizzical look that Aiden shot her.

Aiden's eyes instantly widened. Lukas glanced at the girl currently sitting on the ground and staring into space as if the chaos around her was not happening with concern written across his face. "What's wrong?"

"We don't _know_ , she just kind of blanked out..." Jesse bit her thumbnail, crossing her arms and glancing at Petra.

Evie tilted her head back now, squinting up at them all as if there was a bright light there. It looked like it was taking her a supreme amount of effort to keep her head from lolling on her neck. "Where'd... you all come from?" she asked, weakly.

Olivia bit her lip at that.

Gabriel's face hardened a moment later, growing more solemn. "We must set out for my fortress. We'll be better protected there." With that, he started running out of the convention. Everyone exchanged a look, before they followed suit. Petra glanced at Evie, who was still sitting still, before grabbing her wrist and yanking the shorter girl to her feet. "C'mon- we gotta run."

"Okay..." Evie gave a vague nod and then started following Petra, who was pretty much towing her along with the force of an iron golem.

Petra drew even with Jesse, who was sprinting as hard as she could to get out of there, green eyes glinting with worry. "Thanks for that just now," she told Jesse, through a couple of breathless gasps for air.

"Yeah, well, now we're even-" Jesse suddenly gasped, nearly leaping straight into Petra and Evie's path at the sight of the huge, three-headed black _cloud with tentacles_ forming, not too far behind them. Another flaming skull shot at them.

" _Incoming!_ " And Petra grabbed Jesse and yanked her back, just in time to avoid the skull that missed Jesse's nose by half an inch and detonated in the ground about two yards away from them.

And then they were running again, Petra practically having to haul Evie along as she sprinted into the flaming forest, because one of the skulls must've shot in here, must've set the trees alight like birthday candles, because the trees were emitting fire and smoke so thick that Petra could barely see half a foot in front of her.

She glanced back at Evie, as if checking that Evie was still there.

Right as she did this, Evie stumbled straight into her, and they both staggered a little before the taller girl regained her balance and continued sprinting through the forest, dodging flaming craters, avoiding columns of fire that had once been trees.

"Sorry," Evie told her weakly.

"It's fine, just don't catch on fire," Petra muttered, slanting to the left to avoid a flaming section of trees that had divided the group.

Up ahead, she could hear Gabriel yelling at everyone to keep running, they'd meet up on the other side. She glanced to the right to see Jesse catching up behind Axel and Olivia and Reuben, racing with a too-small group of people to escape the fiery trees.

Evie tripped again, nearly falling right into a tree, and it was with a huge yank and a possible dislocation of the arm that Petra was holding onto that she managed to keep Evie from not faceplanting or getting set on fire.

"Sorry," Evie repeated, but even with the way her voice had gone thin and soft and quiet, Petra could hear the sincerity in it.

"It's fine," Petra repeated as well, emerging from the tunnels of fire and smoke and choking ash, she could barely breathe, her legs were starting to strain, but she forced herself to run _faster_ , run, because she was _not_ dying here.

Tractor beams abruptly flickered to life, roving across the forest floor, picking up unsuspecting people and lifting them, screaming, into the air.

Petra barely dodged one that had started picking up creepers and skeletons and who knew _what_ else, resisting the urge to check on Evie- if she did, she was worried that Evie would trip again, and with all the tractor beams searching the ground, the chances that it would miss them if Evie tripped was less than Petra's chances of not losing at least one weapon when she ventured into the Nether.

Which was a very, very small percentage, so pardon Petra if she didn't make sure Evie was alive.

Moments later, Petra let out a groan, because rapidly approaching as they sprinted towards it was a literal wall of fire.

"Evie, there's a wall of fire, so you're going to have to jump over it, okay?!" Petra yelled to Evie, trying to be heard over screams and the roaring, crackling flames and the explosions.

No response.

"Evie-"

"I'll try..."

They were almost on the flames. "Okay, Evie, we're going to jump in three, two, _now-!"_ And Petra launched herself into the air, glancing over her shoulder to check on Evie-

Evie landed so awkwardly that she stumbled backwards and one foot stepped straight into the flames.

" _Sh*t-!_ " Petra hauled Evie forward, but the damage was done, Evie's lower pant leg was already on fire, she couldn't see what was happening to Evie's leg underneath, but Evie almost didn't seem alarmed, almost wasn't worried, Petra wanted to swat the fire off but hesitated-

A flicker of black in Petra's peripheral vision.

Petra flung them both to the side, just as a huge, black tentacle smashed into the ground where they'd been, making the ground rattle and making Petra's teeth clack together with the force of it, grass and tiny animal bones crunching dangerously under the force of it.

"Did I do something to my leg?" Evie asked almost absentmindedly, as if it was finally occurring to her that, oh yeah, her leg was _on fire_.

Petra glanced down-

\- and then instantly forced herself to swallow the scream that had just threatened to fly out of her mouth. As it was, she made a little whimpering noise that she dearly hoped hadn't reached Evie's brain, because clearly at the moment something was wrong and she was totally out of it.

The leg that had been on fire literally seconds before wasn't on fire anymore, so that was good. But it had been replaced with the huge tentacle that had just smashed into the ground, and Petra was thinking that maybe the crunch of the animal bones had just been Evie's _leg_ , because her calf had just been totally crushed by that tentacle and even though the tentacle was lifting off of Evie, that meant Petra could see the bone poking through her bloody, burned leg.

"... a little bit," Petra said weakly.

"Sorry..."

"Not... not your fault..." Petra swallowed back the vomit that was building up in her throat because yes, she _had_ seen injuries before, yes, she _had_ broken bones before, but she hadn't seen a leg that had gotten as deformed and damaged as _this_.

Evie's face was starting to tighten with pain now, as if the realization of what had just happened, what damage her body had just taken, _what had just happened to her_ was finally taking ahold.

Petra looped one arm under Evie's, tried to lift her into the air so they could make it to the temple, make it out of there alive- and then had to stop because Evie was starting to make a sound like a wounded animal, she could see that Evie was practically biting back the sound, forcing it back down her throat, but it was coming out anyway and her eyes were screwing up with pain and the moment her leg moved blood leaked out of it like a broken water pipe and Petra was forcing back more bile because _oh my god_ legs should not look like leaky water pipes.

"It's gonna hurt," Petra said, and she sounded hushed and anxious like she was trying to comfort an injured child, a little kid and not a teenager like this girl here, the teenager with the crushed, mangled leg. "It's gonna hurt, but we're- we're going to get to the temple, and you'll be fine."

Petra counted the seconds that it took for Evie to process this, one, two, three, and all the time she was acutely aware that black tentacles were writhing in the dark sky, they were searching for a vulnerable target and right now that was them.

Well, more accurately, it was Evie.

"You could just leave me here," Evie said at last, sounding surprisingly mild and yet as if she was currently experiencing every level of agony that she could actually physically experience.

"Are you crazy, then you'd die..."

"Well, I'm slowing you up..."

Petra groaned. This girl was possibly worse than Jesse. "C'mon, if we get to the temple, we can- we can fix your leg, we can-"

Petra was starting to lie through her teeth because there was almost no physical way that this leg could be fixed, no possible way that Evie could ever really stand on this leg unless they had a potion master with them and there was absolutely _no one_ in town that could fix it-

Evie was just looking at Petra, eyes surprisingly lucid and not dull or blank or empty like they'd been before. It was as if this pain was clearing up the fog had been infecting her mind, if only a moment. "You can leave," she repeated. "I won't mind. I don't think we'll both make it if you try to help me get there."

Petra looked around, but there was no one in sight, everybody already had entered the temple, it was just those two, there was no one that was going to be able to help Evie out of that situation.

"Better one than neither," Evie said softly.

"No, dammit, I'm not going to just- let you _die_ , what the hell do you think I am?!" Petra exclaimed, glancing at the sky anxiously because if that monster spotted them, if that _Witherstorm_ saw her, it was going to kill them both because they were total sitting ducks right now-

"A practical person who sees that trying to help someone whose leg is completely crushed is just going to end up getting her killed," Evie replied mildly, still lucid somehow, not screaming in pain or going back to that weird foggy state but just staring at Petra. "Come on, Petra, just go, you're going to end up dying if we stay here much longer."

As if on cue, another tentacle smashed through a swath of trees, decimating the flames and blasting things down with the force of a bomb.

Evie let out a long, tired sigh. "Look, I'm not really going to be of any use, so just hurry up and get out of here before we both die, alright?"

"I'm not going to-!"

"Look, I'm glad that you're a good person and you don't want me to die, but look, my leg is completely crushed and I won't be able to get two yards without that monster killing us." Evie looked at Petra, and then gave a sheepish grin and chuckle. "And no, I'm not trying to be a heroic sacrifice or something. It's just completely unpractical and I think you ought to stay alive."

Petra stared at Evie, trying to decide whether or not Evie was insane. "Evie-"

"Please just leave, I'm not changing my mind. I'll catch up in a minute when it hurts less, how about that?" The wavy-haired girl gave Petra a small smile and a wave.

And the redhead knew she was lying.

She wasn't going to be able to catch up.

Not in a million years.

But she found herself getting up and continuing towards the temple, running away from the shorter girl, running because she wasn't going to let that go in vain, _she had to stay alive._

Evie was lying, and she'd gone anyway.

* * *

The pain was starting to make Evie's head go dull again.

The searing, burning feeling in Evie's leg had become more intense, more painful than before, so much so that it was allowing more fog to creep back in her mind- she supposed that she'd stopped being able to process it and the fog from her concussion (she was sure it was a concussion at this point) was returning full-force.

"What the-?"

Great, someone else had come along. She hoped she could jolt herself out of this stupor long enough to convince them to keep going, to ignore her, since she could see her leg, a red bloody smear against the darkness that was encroaching.

With the effort of someone lifting weights, Evie lifted her head, focused her eyes-

And found herself staring straight at Ivor.

* * *

 **A/N: Cliffhanger!**

 **Yeah, sorry. xD**

 **In other news, you know how I was on hiatus for a month? In Composite, if you read that, you may have read that I've released a game co-written by Toni42 and me. You can check it out at the link below:**

 **arizaluca . itch . io / trust - fall**

 **(Just get rid of the spaces and the link should work!)**

 **It's a lot of fun, and I'm really proud of it, so I hope y'all will like it too!**

 **Responses to reviews~**

 **LunarTheMooncake: And now her leg is crushed too, yay xD**

 **NoItsBecky: ... uhhh (sweat)**

 **Princess of Muffins: I mean, she DEFINITELY needs it now, lol / Haha, same. / Indeed she did xD / Hehehe xD**

 **J.M.M.: (pats)**

 **AquaK13: ... uhhhhh... / Indeed she did xD / Lol, if anything she's my kid xD**

 **EnderKitty68: Forget pass out, she's gonna let a leg crushed.**

 **Well, uh, that's about it.**

 **...**

 **See ya, so long, and g'bye! xD**

 **x.X. A.L. X.x**


	14. A Few Surprises

Ivor couldn't help but stare.

Evie (was that her name? He couldn't really remember. It sounded right, though) was sitting on the ground, looking a bit like she was about to go to sleep. Dazed, a little tired, her eyes glassy as her head lolled on her neck to meet his eyes, which was _not_ the right expression to have when the world was being destroyed around you.

That wasn't the worst thing about this girl, though. That would probably be her leg.

Evie's leg had blisters and burns on the bits of skin that hadn't been torn on her leg, which was basically just bloody muscle with some burned, blistered, raw bloody red skin at this point. And Ivor was _pretty sure_ he could see _bone_ poking through some of that. He could barely look at it without wanting to vomit, and yet his eyes were still fixed on her leg because he couldn't stop _staring at it_.

"Oh... hi Ivor..." Evie's head drooped to the side rather sharply, almost looking like her skull was about to just pop off of her shoulders from the weight of her head. "How're you?"

"The-" Ivor was unsure whether to slap his hand to his face or shout at Evie. Except that Evie looked a little like she had a concussion and had her brain rattling around inside her head. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to shout at her, then.

So he just did the quick equivalent of a facepalm.

"Fine. Your leg's not doing well." His voice came out rather terse as he watched her dazed expression for a reaction- a _proper_ reaction, mind you, not just staring aimlessly in his direction.

Evie's eyes blinked so slowly it took a moment for Ivor to realize what she was doing. Honestly, for a second he thought she was drifting off to sleep. "No, guess not..."

He glanced around, before quickly kneeling next to her and fumbling around in the potion bag he'd managed to scavenge from his lab before everything had gone to hell, before that _monster_ had been born because of some _stupid_ kids poking around in something they didn't understand, while swearing quietly under his breath because good _god_ how did this kid end up with a leg that looked like it'd gone through a meat grinder and then thrown off a cliff?

A few moments and his fingers tightened on a bottle with a faintly glowing, pale green liquid that looked as if wisps of emerald smoke were emitting from it.

"Right," he muttered, glancing up at Evie as he stuck the cork between his teeth and jerked it out, the wisps of smoke beginning to spit green sparks in warning. He estimated about... ten seconds before the power of the gunpowder he'd mixed in faded and just left a normal healing potion.

Unfortunately, the state Evie's leg was in, a normal healing potion wasn't going to do jack crap against this damage.

"This might sting a bit," he muttered, through the cork in his teeth because who had the time to spit it out and _then_ warn her, he already only had six seconds left before the effects faded.

Evie hadn't even finished processing his words when Ivor was dumping the potion on her leg, dragging the bottle through the air and trying to splash an equal amount of the stuff on her leg because let's face it, with gunpowder mixed in to make the results more powerful, you don't want _any_ of that stuff just leaving residue on a limb that's basically a mass of crushed muscle.

Instantly, the liquid started fizzing like a soda, little sparks and wisps of smoke beginning to emit off of Evie's leg as her head lolled so that she could make eye contact with him, amber eyes glazed over and looking for all intents and purposes like _real_ amber. "'Kay."

And then her skin, muscle, and even her bone began to bubble.

Ivor spit the cork out and let it bounce off into the grass before he glanced through his bag, trying to ignore the way damaged skin began to bubble and try to pull together over crushed (and slightly burned) muscle, bone slithering back into the depths of her human leg because let's face it... it looked really gross.

Potion of Poison, that was an acid, uh... makeshift protein drink, two or three Potions of Harming, and oh look, a Potion of Leaping and a Potion of Speed. Hm.

Oh, _there_ it was.

"This should help the concussion," he muttered, holding the bottle out to her after pretty much clawing out the cork and glancing at the sky. Thankfully the Wither- no, could it really be called a Wither anymore? The- the- the Witherstorm (there, that sounds accurate?) didn't seem very interested in either of them, instead drifting closer to the temple.

Evie blinked slowly at it, taking the bottle with rather clumsy fingers. He had to hold onto the bottom to make sure she just didn't drop the thing. "Oh... should it?"

"Yes, yes, now drink it and let's go," he growled, tapping his fingers incessantly on his bag.

 _The portal, the portal, need to get to the portal._

Evie tilted the green liquid for a moment, face tightening.

This may have been due to the fact that charred skin was starting to resemble actual skin, not to mention her leg no longer looked like a broken water pipe that had burst, before being crushed in a grinder and then ripped apart by a pack of rabid wolves. Which was good, but he could hear the clicking of bones being fixed, a sound almost like a wet sponge being squeezed as muscles began to repair themselves.

Even past that, she looked as if she were considering the merit of drinking a potion from someone she barely knew.

Honestly he... really couldn't blame her.

Apparently she decided that she had nothing to lose, because she lifted the bottle and swallowed the potion, although it looked as though it took tremendous effort to do through the concussion and the pain probably going through her leg.

A second of nothing happening, come on, _come on_ -

The moment a flash of light entered Evie's eyes, the potionologist was grabbing her arm because okay, he wasn't going to leave a kid to _die_ and hauling her to her suddenly-functioning feet, skin finally solidifying into a scarred mass of a leg. At least it wasn't resembling a slab of meat anymore. "Alright, get moving," he snapped at her, already starting to tow her along towards the temple.

"I- sorry!" Evie yelped, wincing a little as she put weight on her leg and it twinged angrily.

Ivor didn't reply, simply continued yanking the kid along. (She really wasn't that hard to drag, especially since she seemed to be following him.) A few moments later, he was running into the temple-

Petra burst through the door, sprinting in the other direction- and then actually skidding to a full halt upon spotting Evie. Her eyes widened, jaw dropping open. "Evie?!"

"Petra!" Evie exclaims, eyes widening in relief-

\- and then Ivor was abruptly being shoved back a few steps, his arm releasing from its grip on Evie's automatically as Petra locked him with a glare that was seething with fury, teeth gritting angrily.

"Let go of her!"

Evie's eyes widened as she raised her hands and flailed them around a little bit in protest. "No no no, Petra, he helped me out-" she paused, before glancing at Ivor and then back at Petra rather sheepishly. "Um, I mean, I'm pretty sure. Might be wrong, 'cause my brain was all concussed and whatnot, but he helped fix my leg." She paused before knocking on her head. "And said concussion."

Petra's expression changed from utter rage to a sort of confused... anger. (What? At least it wasn't utter rage anymore.)

Now, if Ivor was patient and this was a different situation, he could've stood there watching Petra's face change, but it wasn't, and he wasn't, so he abruptly took off running for the temple.

 _Just need to get to the portal._

* * *

Petra hesitated, glancing back at the running Ivor, before grabbing Evie's hand and giving her a look- one that was a mix of worry and relief and who knows _what_ else because _holy Notch_ this girl was _alive_ somehow. "C'mon- we gotta get out of here before that- that monster gets out of hand."

"Uh- yes. Yes. Okay. That sounds- yeah." Evie winced as a grating roar resonated through the air, before Petra was nearly yanking the girl off her feet and sprinting in the direction that she knew that temple was- she'd spotted it once while exploring but hadn't gone any closer because she'd been on a deadline and she'd needed to grab that one tiny bit of glistering melon before her buyer got impatient and started asking other people.

And then they were running.

Despite Evie occasionally tripping, Petra was relieved to find that it was MUCH easier to run when the girl wasn't concussed and dazed from said concussion. (Although really, that could be said about anybody.) Even when the world around them was being torn apart.

Eventually, the deafening, persistent roar of the Witherstorm died down, replaced with dead silence.

Usually there would've been parrots or little birds making noises... but Petra was willing to bet most of them got sucked into that _monster_ when it had been born, when it had started ripping the world to pieces.

"Petra, I think-"

Evie didn't get to finish that sentence before Petra was dropping her hand and then spinning around and automatically crushing the (shorter, but then again most people with the exception of Axel were shorter than Petra) girl to her chest in the tightest, most bone-breaking hug she'd ever given anyone, and that included Jesse. The words transferred straight into a startled gasp.

"How the _hell_ are you alright?!" Petra could feel heat building up behind her eyes as she tightened her grip. This may have been tears.

Damn, don't _cry_.

"I'm fine, I'm fine I'm fine, Petra-" Evie gave a weirded-out laugh, giving Petra an awkward pat on the back. "Seriously, it's okay, I'm, uh..." She paused, before resuming speaking. Petra could practically hear the sheepish amusement in her voice. "I'm not dead yet."

"Yeah, I _got that_ , but how?!" Petra shoved Evie back roughly, making Evie yelp and laugh a little in surprise, amber eyes blinking rapidly at her. "You were- your leg was-"

Evie glanced down at her torn pant leg, fingers tugging at the ripped edges of her pants. "Ah... yeah. Um, Ivor gave me a potion to fix it."

Her eyes gravitated to the sky, which was a deep, splotchy mess of colors like purple and pink and a touch of orange as the sun began to creep above the horizon. "Also a potion to fix the concussion."

Petra blinked.

Blinked again.

"... what?"

Evie gave a really awkward shrug, rubbing her fingers through her rumply dark hair. It was especially disheveled from all the running, never mind it being very wavy normally. "Yeah, uh... I'm pretty sure because he yanked me to my feet the second my brain stopped being all fuzzy and started running for the temple." She glanced back down at her leg, which looked like a rather large mass of scar tissue at this point. "Doesn't mean this thing doesn't feel all weird and numb and fuzzy." And she shifted the scarred, ruined, somehow-still-functioning leg.

Petra released Evie's shoulders with a relieved sigh, absentmindedly rubbing her arm. "Well... that's..." She wanted to say something, but abruptly realized that she didn't actually have anything to say besides 'good'. Which was a tremendous understatement.

So she finally just shrugged.

Yes, Petra. Excellent use of words. You could write a novel.

Before Petra could actually say anything else, her gloved hand rubbed the inside of her elbow.

Instantly dark spots burst through her vision, a violent jolt of pain going through her entire arm and almost numbing it from the tips of her fingers to her shoulder. She couldn't help repressing a yelp in surprise, instead hissing like an angry teakettle.

"Petra?" Evie blinked, looking startled, before her surprise changed to worry. "Uh... are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm- I think I'm fine," Petra muttered, shifting out of Evie's reach before the other girl could take her by the shoulders and check her over, because judging by how Evie had awkwardly reached up to help her, that was what Evie was attempting to do. Glancing down at the arm she'd just been rubbing, she experimentally pressed down on the crook of her elbow again.

"-tra? Petra!"

When the dizzying array of dark splots had faded from Petra's vision, she found her back pressed into the rough bark of a tree, shivering almost painfully. Evie was standing with her hands sort of up in surrender while also attempting to reach for Petra, which resulted in her looking rather awkward with her hands hovering above Petra. "What- why did-" her eyes flickered to where Petra's hand was resting lightly on the crook of her left elbow.

"Alright, move your hand."

Petra blinked at the way Evie's voice had suddenly become... well, not _much_ more bossy. Just enough to take her aback for a moment. "I- my hand?"

"Yeah. You didn't start the weird nonsense until when your arm was on your elbow. Off off off." Evie made frantic little shooing motions with her hand, Petra automatically shifting her palm off of the sleeve as Evie reached out, and (making as little contact with Petra as possible) tugged it up.

Instantly, the air in Petra's lungs were clamped inside, swirling around in a mess as her eyes widened.

There was a little splotch of purple in the crook of her elbow. It looked a little like a bruise, but normal bruises didn't have a tinge of blue that was almost like a blue version of the Witherstorm's eyes right in the center, a dot of black right at the very center. Normal bruises didn't have flecks of red and pink and purple dotted everywhere within a cesspool, almost in a controlled way. Normal bruises didn't have an overall shade of disgusting yellow over it.

This was Wither Sickness.

Except this one, tiny spot that Petra had just contracted was already dozens of times worse than when she accidentally contracted it in the Nether once or twice.

"Petra..."

Petra's eyes gravitated from the tiny purple bruise-like spot, flecked with angry red and pink specks and tinged with an ugly shade of yellow you'd see on bathroom tile in the crook of her elbow to Evie's frightened amber eyes.

"What happened?"

* * *

 **A/N: Uhf. Dunno if this is really good but here, have a chapter :3**

 **So as you might've seen from some of my other stories, I'm in my senior year of high school, and planning to apply to art school. And to do so, I have to get my portfolio ready. As of right now... I have little to nothing I'd be comfortable with showing colleges when I apply; not to mention that these art schools are REALLY high level. (Except for one but I still want to take that one really seriously.) I'm also working on Fata Morgana (formerly known as Phantasmagoria) and a few other projects.**

 **I'm... not ready at all, so from now until sometime around early December, I will probably rarely surface on here. (Not that I've been doing that recently, sorry! I've been busy.) When I DO come on, updates will be very sporadic. Please don't be surprised if I don't reappear on here until after that early December deadline- I am going to be _snowed under_ with portfolio preparation, not to mention my last year of high school.**

 **But thank you for following my dumb stories; I am... really glad to see that some people enjoy them.**

 **Responses to reviews!**

 **ScreechingLunar: (laughs) Yep, next chapter (whenever I actually ever get to it) is going to be... fun. Aiden's not gonna be too pleased.**

 **EnderKitty68: Yep, her leg got crushed. Don't worry! It's better now! Probably... going to have problems with that leg for the rest of her life but hey she can walk.**

 **Smile4the-World: Oh- _o_ , yeah, he's going to be pretty mad at her. Not to mention she just feels horrible about it herself. But yes, Ivor was helpful. He _did_ create a monster that's trying to eat the world but he's not a terrible person.**

 **NoItsBecky: What, keeping my characters alive and happy with no injuries? I've been failing that job since day 1, Becky xD**

 **x.X. A.L. X.x**


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